The Show Must Go On
by Psycofoxx
Summary: ZOMG not costumes, NOT COSTUMES! Nadir kidnaps Suikoden people and forces them to act.
1. He cried Wolf

  If anyone has any suggestions for subsequent casting jobs, or plays they'd like to see, I will consider suggestions. If this sucks and you want it removed so you never have to see my crappy writing again, you can tell me that too.

    Nadir, the mysterious playwright and director, possessed the awesome power to force people to appear in plays straight off of the battlefield and without their consent. He could not prevent them from ruining the plays, but that never seemed to bother him as long as the show went on; however this time in seeking new actors he has gone too far…  

He Cried Wolf 

    The tiny theater was abuzz with murmuring, the most recent rendition of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" had aroused curiosities because after comparing notes, the residents of Budehuc castle had realized that only one person, the castle lord Thomas, had been assigned a role, where had Nadir found four new actors?

    Silence fell as the magical theater lights dimmed and the curtains were pulled back to reveal…. Luc? The audience gasped in surprise, the very enemy that they had been fighting was on stage?? No one had any doubt that this was in fact Luc, rather than someone in a costume, since Nadir never issued costumes; but they knew better than to interfere with the play, not wanting to risk the wrath of Nadir, who could cast them as the floor in the next play if he chose.

   Sarah walked onto the side of the stage and began in a sad voice, "Once their was a kind but misunderstood young man who tried to free the other villagers from their blind trust by shouting, 'Wolf Wolf'. Then one day…

  The audience glanced at each other quizzically as Yuber stalked across the back of the stage looking very, very upset with the casting. They had been under the mistaken impression that even _Nadir_ would not cast a demonic homicidal maniac.

    Thomas appeared after a longer than usual pause, "grr grr" he said timidly, looking very uneasy about pursuing the "sheep" to the other side of the stage.

    "Oh no, help, a wolf." Luc said in a flat monotone, making half-hearted gestures that one would assume were supposed to represent panic.

    Albert walked onto the stage, sighing heavily in irritation he began, "A wolf?" he said with almost as little enthusiasm as Luc, "Oh, that kid again, I will not fall for that again."

    "Wait, there really is a wolf." Luc cried unbelievably, stepping towards Albert as he began to walk away.

    "I think the "sheep can hold his own." Albert mumbled.

    "No kidding." Luc answered looking at the back of stage.

    Sarah tried to continue the narration as screams began to the left of the stage. "When the wolf really did come, no one believed the boy," she got out before Thomas ran screaming across the stage as fast as his legs could carry him, followed closely by a rampaging "sheep" carrying two swords. "Umm, isn't the wolf supposed to chase the sheep?" She asked watching them.

    "This is our chance to get out of here." Albert whispered to Luc.

    "Finally," Luc replied, rubbing his temple. "Sarah." He commanded.

    "Right," she replied lifting her staff to teleport them off the stage. 

    "What about Yuber?" Albert asked like he didn't really care.

    "He'll get himself out, lets just go." Luc answered as the spell took effect.

     "Um, the end?" Nadir ended lamely, trying to cover up the disastrous ending of the play, "Please join us next time, and if you could, any of you who brought weapons today please report backstage to help us with a minor technical difficulty." The last few words he had to shout over the chorus of screams that meant Yuber had run into the lighting crew…


	2. Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet 

Opening night at the playhouse seemed to be no different than usual, except for the overwhelming abundance of weapons visible in the crowd. The theater had been closed for a few weeks because even after Dr.Tuta and Mio had patched up the lighting crew and stage manager, they had immediately gone on strike, demanding danger pay and wall runes, it had taken quite awhile to convince Sebastian to loan some of the castle money for this purpose, but Nadir had eventually prevailed by insisting that the theater was earning money for the castle, and threatening to cast Sebastian as the little match girl.

  A hush fell as the lights finally dimmed and the curtains were drawn.

  Yuber stood on the balcony, tapping one hand against the railing in irritation, "Romeo where the hell are you?" 

   "I take thee at thy word," Luc said walking onto the stage, "Call me but love and I'll never take the part of Romeo again and we can leave."

   "Romeo what are you doing here? The garden walls are high and hard to climb and think of what my relatives might do if they found you here, they could slice open you gut and play cats cradle with you intestines and paint the walls with your blood, letting your blood ooze beautifully down their cruel blades as you scream out your last at their feet, begging for mercy that would never come…" 

   Yuber licked his licked and began grinning fondly as he continued. In the audience Nei covered Shabon's ears as the other kids were herded out of the theater. Some people with weaker constitutions started to feel a little queasy. "Juliet" was in the middle of describing the sounds of pain "Romeo" would make while her kinsmen castrated him with a belt-sander when Luc interrupted.

    "But I'm invincible! (Now can we get on with the show please?) The mask he wore hid whatever expression he had on his face, but his voice seemed a bit higher than was usual.

    A bit later than cue, he turned and walked over to hide behind the wooden bushes in the background of the stage.

     Albert and Sarah came onstage, looking around them, "The voices came from over here," Sarah began.

     "He's over there, kill him." Yuber exclaimed pointing to where Luc's head was visible behind the fake plants.

     "I'm sorry lady Juliet, we came because we heard voices…" Sarah continued with her lines, taking no note of the disruption of the play.

     "I told you he's right there, make it slow and painful."

     "Forgive my rudeness," Albert drawled, taking Sarah's lead and trying to get the play over with as soon as possible.

     As soon as they left, Yuber turned back to where Luc stood waiting for his cue, "You might as well go now, they regrettably won't kill you."

    "Although we have just talked must we part already?" Luc continued (Finally this is taking forever) he muttered as an afterthought.

    "Madam!" Thomas called from within the balcony doors. 

    "Someone has not learned their lesson," Yuber smirked evilly, glancing towards the doorway. "Don't worry Romeo, I think you are supposed to die in the end anyway."

    "I will die in the end as soon as my mission is complete." Luc said in a monotone reply.

    "Don't expect me to kill myself for you."

    "Wouldn't dream of it."

    "Madam, come quickly!" Thomas called again, although the audience could here him mumbling "pleasepleasepleasedon'tcome."

     "Any, 'night" Yuber said, turning to walk backstage. A series of muffled thuds was heard as Luc began the next line.

    "Oh Juliet, if you want to get out of here, let me see your face once more."

    Yuber walked back onto the stage grinning, fresh blood spattered his hands and face with red, "Isn't this over yet?" 

    "Oh Juliet the girl for me." Luc said in the same monotone that he had used to deliver all his other lines, while throwing his hands upward in a dramatic gesture that by no means matched his voice.

    "Oh how I wish this night would never end, then we could go on inanely wasting time when we should be searching for the true runes."

    There was a long silence, "(isn't the nurse supposed to call you again?)" Luc whispered.

    "The nurse has been indisposed," Yuber smiled, "but a thousand times goodnight anyway."

    "A thousand times good riddance," Luc Muttered. "And don't have too much fun back there, we do have a job to do," he called back as he gratefully walked off stage.

    As the light began to dim the balcony set collapsed, exposing Yuber holding poor Thomas by the throat, "Of all the scenes in "Romeo and Juliet," Nadir had to pick the one without gratuitous bloodshed."

   And then the curtain dropped.


	3. William Tell

William Tell 

   Tuta and Mio had had their hands full for days trying to heal Thomas of the physical and mental wounds he had received over the course of the last two plays Nadir had cast him. When it got out that another play was upcoming he had locked himself in a spare cell in the dungeon and hid under the bed cowering in fear until Cecile informed him that the scripts were already out and that he had not been cast this time. In fact Cecile had been cast and promised that she had seen all of the other actors and there were no roles open. However, she was curious as to who they were because she was certain that they weren't castle residents (she had missed the last two plays due to her duties as commander of the guards).

   The usual crowd appeared for opening night, except for the young children who had been banned from attending any of Nadir's plays after the last incident.

    The curtain was drawn to the usual dramatic music, Cecile stood on one side of the stage tied to a post with an oversized apple on her helmet, Yuber stood on the opposite side holding a bow at the ready.

    "You _intentionally _gave him a weapon to use on stage?!" Hugo asked Nadir from, who was seated near the front to watch his work unfold.

    "Well actually, I gave him the practice bow to use for the play, but he insisted that using a real weapon was more realistic." Nadir answered as if it had been a simple question and he didn't quite grasp why it was a bad idea to give a weapon to this particular actor. "Now shhh, its starting," he hissed pointing to the stage.

   "Wise decision to use the strategy I created my lord," Albert droned to Luc.

   "Yes, he'll be nervous, (yeah right) with that target and if he misses the people will turn on him."

   "Actually, I think he'll only hit the apple is he misses," Albert remarked, looking at the angle of the bow Yuber was carrying.

   "Has he ever used a bow before?" Luc asked conversationally. 

   "I have no idea," Albert replied in a low voice, "anyway…" 

   "Show us your stuff William Tell, hit the apple." Luc spoke up.

   "That should be simple enough," Yuber answered, before swinging his bow towards the audience and shooting directly at Apple, hitting her in the shoulder. "Got her." He said smirking.

   "Good enough." Albert responded.

   "You Bastard!" Caesar yelled, rushing at the stage and apparently forgetting that he wasn't exactly a fighter.

   "Don't ruin the play!" Nadir yelled, oblivious to the ruin the play was causing to the audience. 

   "Stupid little brother, what do you expect to acco-" Albert didn't have a chance to finish his sentence as he was tackled by an enraged Caesar. The climatic battle between the two estranged siblings might have made a good drama in itself, except for the fact that both were tacticians not warriors and the "brawl" quickly degenerated into a bout of bitch-slapping and hair-pulling.

    "That's pretty sad," Dupa remarked from the audience.

    "I still want to kill something…" Yuber remarked, glancing evilly at Cecile who was still tied to the pole.

    "Lets just get out of here, this play is over," Luc exclaimed stopping him, "You can kill something somewhere else, just get our strategist would you?"

    Yuber gave a disappointed glance to Luc, but walked over and dragged Albert out of the fray by his hair.

    "Sarah." Luc commanded.

    "You cut my part out completely…" Sarah remarked from beside the prop crowd, before raising her staff to teleport them out.

    After the enemy/actors had disappeared, Caesar, trying to retain what dignity he had left, set about ordering people to bring Apple to the hospital; very soon the theater was dark and empty..

   Except for Cecile, who was still tied to the pole onstage, "Hey someone? Little help?"   


	4. The Little Match Girl

By request, now showing the Little Match Girl! By the way, requests do not have to be plays from the game if you have any other ideas, and I don't really have to include all four villains, if anyone's interesting in suggesting casts, or alternative casts to finished plays. Anyway, on with the show!

The Little Match Girl 

    Budehuc castle had returned to a close semblance of wary normality. Apple was recovering well from the arrow wound. Caesar was still seeing the castle therapist for the terrible ego damage he had suffered after having the entire castle witness the fight with his brother.

    Nadir had done a brief run of "He Cried Wolf" with an all dog cast, which despite the terrible performance had been received incredible well by the non-injured audience, after the play was deemed safe, even Shabon, Alanis, Melville, and Elliot were allowed to return to watching the plays. However, many saw this as only the calm before the storm; Nadir had been furious with Caesar for "ruining" the last play by running on stage. He could be seen occasionally giving Caesar evil glances when no one seemed to be looking, and maniacal laughter erupted from the playhouse at odd hours of the night.

    The day dawned bright and early as the scripts for the next play were sent out. Even Viki the elder noticed as the background music turned ominous. Still, the castle residents not occupied with important duties came as usual to the theater on opening night.

    The lights dimmed and the curtains were drawn to the snowy and dismal set of the "Little Match Girl". Yuber stood glowering and holding a basket of matches.

    "He's gone too far this time," he muttered.

    "It is the last day of the year, a young 1023 year old girl walks the snowy streets at night selling matches," Began Sarah, "Today she hasn't sold a single match, she hasn't made any money, when she gets home her father will beat her."

    "Normally, I'm all for excessive violence, but I'd like to see this 'father' try something." Yuber grumbled, flicking one of his long blades into his free hand.

    Luc and Caesar entered the from stage left.

    "Buy some matches."

    "What is wrong with this child?" Luc said sounding exceedingly bored, and didn't even pause in his march across the stage.

    "Out of my way I'm a genius in a hurry." Caesar said trying to pass as well.

    "Time to take out the trash," Yuber growled, before springing, "I said buy the matches!" he yelled furiously, pouncing Caesar and stabbing him repeatedly with his sword.

    "Okay, okay, take everything, I don't even want the matches!" Caesar yelped in pain.

    "No, you can have them." Yuber grinned evilly dousing Caesar's body in gasoline from a can he pulled from behind the snowman prop. He was about to throw a lit match on him when the sprinkler system came on over the stage. A large hook emerged from stage right and hauled Caesar off the stage as Yuber was destracted. A very wet and disgruntled Sarah promptly teleported away from the stage.

    Eventually the spray stopped, Yuber returned to his position with his ruined basket of matches. A bright light enveloped the stage and Albert appeared, immersed in a book entitled Self Defense for Wussy Support Characters.

    "Hi, grandma." Yuber said mockingly.

    "…" Albert replied.

    "What are you doing out of heaven? I guess I should send you back…" He grinned manically, raising his sword.

    "Okay, this play is over." Albert snapped, looking up from his book.

    "I haven't killed anyone yet, and I know someone dies in this play!" Yuber pouted.

     "You are."

     "We'll see about that."

     "You can kill the people who don't review fanfiction."

     "I want to kill someone who doesn't deserve it!"

     "Lets just leave and we can instigate a nice bloody battle somewhere, how's that?"

     "Good enough."

     And with that they teleported off the stage, leaving behind a copy of the script. Silence followed for several long minutes as the curtains didn't fall. The Audience looked around at each other in confusion.

    "Hey, where'd the narrator go?" asked a tech person from behind the stage. 

     "I guess the play's over then," someone from the audience commented.

     Nadir sighed, getting up from his front row seat, "The end."

     Immediately after he said this, Tuta and Mio raced on stage to help Caesar who was laying just off to one side.

     "Why did you punish him for ruining the play, but you never do anything about Yuber ruining his part?" Apple asked accusatively.

     "Hey wait a minute, "Kill Caesar" is in the script! Mio exclaimed, looking at the script Yuber had dropped as he left the stage.

     "Let me see that!" Apple said, running up to grab it, "Hey, this is written in on the margin!"

     "This looks like attempted murder!" Kidd exclaimed jumping out of his seat, I'd better look at that script and see whose handwriting it is.

      And so, the evening came to an end, leaving the people of Budehuc with the hope that with the four stock plays being over, that Nadir would not cast them again, but we all know that wasn't very likely.  


	5. King Lear

King Lear 

  Caesar was still in the hospital wing of the castle. Kidd had taken it upon himself to come to the bottom of the murder attempt and was currently interrogating Koroku about his obvious involvement in the incident.

  Meanwhile, the erstwhile flame champion of Budehuc castle had a brilliant idea, to avoid further catastrophes at the playhouse, all thathad to be done was remove Nadir from the premises for extended periods by taking advantage of his role as a support character! Unfortunately, this backfired. In north cavern they found several plays in the monster's chest, including "King Lear," "The Highwayman," and "Sleeping Beauty". Since Nadir was there, they were unable to dispose of the new plays before he caught them, and thus a new reign of terror began at the playhouse…

   "Welcome!" Nadir began as the theater quieted, "We are now performing the first scene of "King Lear", which was recently found by our esteemed flame champion. 

   Chris, Hugo, and Geddoe moaned.

   "Actually all we were able to find was the first act." 

   The audience had to restrain themselves from bursting into cheers at the thought of a shortened play.

   "Now on with the show!" The lights dimmed and the curtains rose.

   Sarah sat elegantly on the cardboard throne in center stage, Albert, Borus and Yuber were off to her left, while Luc took up the right, just behind Sarah's throne.

   "Now that my three daughters are here," if Caesar had been in the theater instead of in traction he would have been laughing at his brother then, "You know that I have decided to parcel out my kingdom to my heirs while I still live," Sarah intoned in a strangely uneventful opening.

   "Power." Albert said quietly to himself while rubbing his hands together.

   "But.." Sarah interrupted, "before I decide on your inheritance, I must see how much my daughters truly love me."

   In the audience Luce gulped and started ushering the children from the theater.

   "So I want each of you to tell me how much you care for your dear father."

   "Oh." Luce sat back down, since the play apparently _wouldn't_ involve incest.

   "Gonriel, what do you say?"

   Yuber smiled in what was supposed to represent a loving expression, but came off as being very, very disturbing. "Father, I love you more than killing, and blood, and the dying cries of the innocent writhing in pain!"

   Sarah blinked, "Ahh, well I suppose that does show quite a lot of devotion on your part… Regan, what say you to your sister's claim?"

   Albert smirked, "My "sister" doesn't know the first thing about lying for personal gain, and doesn't go far enough in expressing the devotion of a child for a parent; I can tell you my dear father that I love you almost as much as I love myself!"

    "Wow, that is impressive," Sarah mock exclaimed without changing her expression, "But now finally for my last and dearest daughter Cordellia," she continued turning to Borus, "How much do you tender your father?"

    "Ummm, I'm not very eloquent so what can I say to you?" he exclaimed, being the only person on stage that was even trying to act.

    "Say something, or for what you say shall be your reward and nothing comes of nothing." "Lear" warned.

    "But I can say nothing more than my heart in all honesty, I love you as a …. Daughter." The last part Borus muttered with quite a bit less enthusiasm as Percival snickered from the audience.

    "Hmph, thinking about honesty instead of fleecing people for all their worth, how foolish," Albert snickered to himself.

    "Guards! Remove this ungrateful wretch from the castle!" Sarah shouted pointing at Borus, "Henceforth she is no more my daughter!" 

    "See?" Albert added smugly.

    "Crucify him!" Yuber cheered hopefully.

    "You want me to manhandle that brute?" Luc asked from his guard position, comparing his and Borus' relative sizes.

    "Just try it, you enemy of Lady Chris." Borus growled in a very unladylike fashion.

     Luc sighed and suddenly giant winds appeared around him, (and only fear of Nadir prevented a rash of flatulence jokes), the sign of the true wind rune appeared in the air, followed by the fearsome wind dragons, who crashed through the stage, carrying Borus out the otherside, as well as the Anne and the entire bar.

    "Sir Borus!" The Zexen knights cried in worry.

    "Anne!" cried Hugo.

    "The Booze!" Screamed Joker.

    "Luc! How dare you resort to such random violence on stage?" Yubver questioned angrily, "That's my job and you know it!"

     One side of the curtain fell, the other having been blown away.

     "Please excuse these minor technical difficulties," Nadir declared hastily before the stage.

     "Hey, I know the rest of the play," Yuber added, "and I'm supposed to get to gouge somebody's eyes out!"

     As the theater degenerated into a state of chaos, Geddoe quietly sneaked out the back entrance to protect his other eye.

    Meanwhile, in the dungeon…

    "Talk! You wrote that message didn't you?!" Kidd demanded.

    "Ruff ruff?" Koroku replied quizzically.

    "Don't give me that 'I have no opposable thumbs thing' you can open doors!"

    "Ruff!" Koroku protested.

    "You had the motive and the opportunity, didn't you?"

    "Ruffy ruff!" Koroku denied vigorously.

    "I swear, I will get to the bottom of this!!" Kidd cried dramatically, "Even if it takes until the next chapter to do it."


	6. Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty 

It was an hour before opening night on one of the newest plays to be performed at the newly restored Budehuc castle theater, and things were not going well for Nadir backstage.

   "What do you mean no eye gouging?!" Yuber demanded.

   "The prince does not get to gouge peoples eyes out, this is a fairy tale!" Nadir answered, "besides, I did some research and you were wrong, it was Albert's character that was supposed to tear someone's eyes out in King Lear, so there!"

   "Albert? Albert can't gouge eyes! So what is I took some liberties, I'm much more qualified to torture old men!"

   Nadir began glowing suddenly, and before anyone knew it, the argument was settled and all people were back to practicing their lines by the power of the playwright who for some reason could always get people in his plays no matter where they were, or what they wanted.

   "Did it work?" a tall brown haired woman asked Nadir quietly.

   "We had the argument first off."

   "So it looks like the whole thing with King Lear was intentional?"

   "Yep, I'd say you covered your ass pretty well, no one will suspect that you had a copy of The Riverside Shakespeare and didn't bother to check it when writing the last play."

   "Excellent." The fanfic writer cackled before disappearing again.

    However, it was not long before there was more trouble with the script..

    "I am NOT kissing that!!" Sarah uncharacteristically screamed, stabbing a finger at Yuber. 

    "Technically, he kisses you, you'll be asleep." Nadir corrected.

    "That doesn't matter, I'm not doing it!!"

    "I could gouge _her_ eyes out." Yuber suggested helpfully.

   Later….

  The only light in the darkening theater was from the small shrine Ace and Joker had built around the devastated bar. The audience watched with trepidation as the curtain rose. The stage was decked out with a popup castle on one side, with a door-sized drawbridge that led into a single room containing a bed.

   Luc stood on the far left (the spot reserved for the narrators), holding a script that he obviously hadn't bothered to rehearse, he immediately began reading in a monotone drawl without pausing or inflecting, "Once there was a peaceful kingdom ruled by a good king and queen who had only one beautiful daughter as their heir. They were very happy until an evil witch decided to curse them, and place the princess under a curse of sleep until she was kissed by her one true love. Who will be the one to save the lovely princess from her curse? Witch: Now I will curse you princess. Princess: No! Witch:…" Nadir waved at him frantically, "You're reading the whole script! Stop, just do the narration!"

   "Oh." Luc answered sitting down where he stood, and despite the mask, looking extremely bored.

    Sarah and Albert appeared from one side of the stage. "Now I will curse you princess!" He intoned, raising a pink wand with a golden star on the end that looked like it had been pilfered from the fairy godmother, adding "There is something seriously wrong with this casting…" as a muttered aside.

    "I told you, I'm not putting up with this," Sarah said, raising her own, and very real, wand.

    "That's not in the scri-" Albert managed to get out before he was hit by a flash of light from Sarah's staff and fell over unconscious.

    "Sorry, but someone has to be knocked out by an evil witch," she said to his insensible form. "Now…" she said mostly to herself, trying to haul Albert onto the bed. "Damnit," she grumbled, "someone needs to work out occasionally instead of just sitting around reading all the time. Hey, Luc could you help me with this?"

    With Luc's help, they both managed to haul Albert into the princess's bed and flee the stage just as the sound of hooves could be heard approaching. Yuber walked onto the stage, followed by Rico, who was clapping two halves of coconut together to create horse noises.

   The stage flashed with blinding light, and suddenly the castle was surrounded by a hedge of paper-meche roses with lots of thorns. Yuber promptly pulled out his swords, and after causally stabbing Rico before she could escape, began hacking through the thorn bush- which started screaming in pain via Mel's ventriloquism.

    "It's just not the same," Yuber sighed looking at the murdered paper, "they don't bleed… Oh look the enchanted princess!" Yuber smiled maniacally, "Oh she looks so pretty, and helpless, just like she can't fight back or something." Still grinning he approached the sleeping beauty with his blades still drawn and looking distinctly un-noble-prince-like.  

   Nadir hurriedly motioned to the crew to close the curtains. "He wakes up the princess and they all live happily ever after!" he finished quickly, "That's all of the play thanks for coming!" he continued a little more desperately as blood began seeping out from under the curtain.  


	7. Highwayman

Well Merry Christmas Everyone, unfortunately the chapters may slow down until the break is over, my parents internet connection is really slow compared to my one at school. If anyone is curious as to why Borus would be after Ayame, just look at the bath scene between her and Chris.  Anyway, on with the show!

The Highwayman

    The Eastern wing of Budehuc castle was in chaos, although oddly enough, the chaos was not currently coming from the playhouse as it usually did right before (and during) a play, this time is was coming from the infirmary. Albert had been taken to the castle hospital shortly after the end of the cataclysm that was "Sleeping Beauty," this had caused an intense problem because Caesar was also still in the infirmary.  The two brothers were shouting at each other, as well as hurling their food, silverware, and everything else that came to hand at one another from across the room. It had only gotten worse when Albert had calmed down enough to use his head and had constructed a catapult from the nearby medical supplies.

       In an effort to try to keep the peace, Tuta had had them moved to beds on opposite ends of the room. However, this only resulted in them throwing the same objects over Rico's bed to hit each other, while she vainly tried to stay out of the way; as well as trying to explain to Fred that she was not being unfaithful to him by clapping coconuts together for another knight. Halfway through his rant on Rico's actions Fred was hit on one side of the head by a misfired banana and was simultaneously hit on his other side by a launched bedpan. He drew his sword furiously, but was unsure of who to attack first. Then the door burst open as all five castle dogs raced inside, running in circles as they were pursued by Kidd trying to round them up for more interrogation. Borus entered in a jealous rage saying that he had to challenge Ayame to a duel, but of course wasn't heard because he was speaking and not screaming. Rufus Shinra stormed in demanding that Albert give him his coat back, but was promptly trampled by a horde of screeching fangirls who had realized that Albert was wearing an open-backed hospital gown, and a partridge landed in the pear tree that Rico had received as a get well present for some reason.

    By the time the NSPCB (National society to prevent cruelty to Bishonen) had cleared everything up, the castle residents were beginning to think that even one of Nadir's plays would be a welcome change… the fools…

     The curtains rose over the darkened theater to show a ribbon of highway stretching into the background set, a inn was set up on one side so that the audience could see into the cut away of the first floor, but the floor above it could only be seen through the shuttered window. Sarah stood by one side to begin the narration, "The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas, the road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor and the highwayman came riding, riding, riding….." Sarah stopped suddenly, looking offstage, "Do I really have to repeat that three times?" she whispered irritably.

     "Its for poetic effect," Nadir whispered back, "I had to make some concession in turning the poem into a play."

      Sarah sighed heavily, "The highwayman came riding, riding, riding, the highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door."

     While she spoke, Yuber walked onto the stage carrying one of those play horse sticks with a stuffed horse head on the end. He had to make a rather big show of walking slowly along the curving "roadway" so that he would be traveling all through the time Sarah was narrating.

      Finally reaching the "inn," he reached up to knock on the door. There was silence for a moment, followed by the sound of a scuffle from behind the shutters of the second floor. Suddenly the window flew open, revealing Sasarai with a large purple bruise forming under one eye. "Why did you hit me?" he hissed angrily to someone behind the wall.

      "You're supposed to be the "landlord's blackeyed daughter, right?" answered Luc voice maliciously.

      "That's referring to eye color, not a black eye!!" Sasarai shouted back.

      "Just talk to your boyfriend, Bess."

      Sasarai just sighed and looked down to where Yuber was waiting impatiently, "Hello Bess, I'm going to brutally slaughter some people and take their gold, but I'll be back later."

      "Is the slaughter necessary?" 

      "No, that's why it's so fun!" Yuber grinned.

      Sasarai leaned his head to the side, trying to follow the script and let his hair down, but since his hair barely reached his ears it was proving rather difficult. Yuber quickly pulled a sword and slashed off a lock of Sasarai's hair. "I got some" he said, and galloped away to the west.

     Sarah returned to the stage, "So the highwayman went off for his night's mission, leaving Bess alone to wait for his return. However, the next evening a troop of soldiers came to set a trap for him."

     As she finished, Borus, Percival, Leo, and Roland marched onto the stage and up to the inn. Sasarai walked onto the set from the other side.

     "Where is the landlord?" Roland demanded brusquely while the other three broke into the absent landlord's ale.

     "My father is not here." Sasarai replied in a very non-wench-like manner.

      "The men gagged the daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed." Sarah went on.

      "Get Her!" shouted Leo. Sasarai yelped as he was dog-piled by three men and an elf in full platemail.

      "and tied a musket beside her with the barrel beneath her breast." Sarah continued.

      Here the knights found themselves with a slight problem…

      "He's shorter than the bloody musket!" Borus exclaimed irritably as the he tried to find some way to tie up Sasarai so that the musket was below his hairline.

      "Maybe we should hang him from the ceiling or something?" Leo suggested.

      "Wait I've got an idea," Percival said racing over to the bar to procure a wooden box, "put him on this."

      "Alright, now what do we tie him up with?"

      "Hold on I found her "blood red love knot""

      "Her what?"

      "I dunno some kind of soup."

      "Hey can I borrow your finger?"

      "You don't tie a bow on a hostage!"

      "That's the only knot I know how to tie."

      "Do it like this"

      "Can't breathe…."

      "You tied it around his neck!"

      "Okay I think that works…"

      The knights moved away to reveal a very bedraggled Sasarai standing on a box and tied to the bedpost and gagged with ribbons, with the barrel of a musket at chest level to him. "Now keep good watch," began Borus, and then he blinked and glanced at the script, "I'm not going to kiss the bishop," he stated firmly.

      "Anyway," Sarah began loudly to continue and hopefully finish the show before another argument could break out, "the trap being set, the soldiers waited for the highwayman to return, but they didn't notice that behind them Bess was struggling with her bonds," Sasarai dutifully began to struggle, then stopped dramatically to listen as a horse could be heard offstage.

      "Bess knew that her beloved would walk straight into the trap set for him, so taking a deep breath she pulled the trigger on the musket she was bound to and warned him away with her death."

      Sasarai pulled the trigger, splashing red paint down the front of his pristine blue uniform and the sound of the horse retreated.

      "This stupid show is three quarters narration," Sarah grumbled before launching into the next bit, "the highwayman fled on hearing the shot because he didn't know that Bess had died. That morning he chanced to hear that Bess the landlords black-eyed daughter had died."

      "There was bloodshed and I missed it!?" Yuber shouted, charging onto the stage in a rage, discarding the horsey stick along the way; only to be knocked flat by a volley from the trap waiting in the inn. He was beginning to get up and charge again when he looked down again at what he'd been hit with, "Hey this is real blood!" And ignoring the rest of the play he began splashing and frolicking in the pools of blood that had been shot at him like a child in a sprinkler. 

      "Hey! You stole the donated blood from the infirmary!" Screamed Mio from the audience.

      "Quiet," hushed Dr.Tuta as the curtain dropped over the disturbing scene, "At least a show ended without Yuber maiming anyone."

      "Actually I think that Sasarai might as soon as he finds out that the paint he was doused with is permanent," Luce whispered.

      "Lets just get out of here, the play is over," Viki the younger suggested, and everyone agreed.


	8. Hamlet

I would like the opportunity to discuss play ideas and suggestions from my wonderful audience.

   HappyKitsune99: Cinderella or Pinocchio? I think I can manage that.

   MWPP and Lilly: A musical huh? Just when I'm obsessing over Chicago…

   Tina: Two for Cinderella, I'll have to do that next. As for the other, I already did "Romeo and Juliet", unless you have a casting suggestion or another act you want done.

   Izzuddin al-Qassam: I don't normally do unconventional pairings overtly, but I think I can swing that. Remember though- Chris is a miserable actress.

   MWPP and Lilly: (again… Yeah!! Serial fans!! *hugs*) But seriously, I haven't played SII, so I never got "Neclords End."

   As for CoolKatz2002- see the title of this chapter.

   I will try to manage the stories I know here before working on new suggestions.

   In other news, it seems that the side stories have been getting as much storytime as the plays themselves, no one has complained so I guess that's okay. Will Kidd ever solve his murder mystery? Will the bar be rebuilt? How about Boris's quest to rid the world of anyone who has ever looked at Chris? Is Tuta going to regain control of his clinic? What of Doughnuts? Who stole my remote?

  Anyway, on with the show…

Hamlet 

   The theater darkened as much as it was able, however Ace and Joker were still holding a candle lit vigil around the bar that Luc had destroyed chapters ago. Anne had been rethinking her profession- her first bar had burned down on opening day and now the second had been blown away. It seemed like tempting fate to build another.

   The stage was fitted like a throne room- if throne rooms were made of cardboard and had a dueling floor thingy in the middle. Luc and Sarah were standing at opposite ends of the stage while Albert stood regally before one throne holding a goblet, while Yuber sat beside him.

    Landis waited for the raising of the curtains in the narrator box to one side of the stage. "Yuh huh huh, the evil plot unfolds as Claudius and Laertes both plot to poison Hamlet  because they fear the ghost of Ophelia coming after them. Laertes has poisoned his sword to kill Hamlet for his sister's suicide and to keep her from haunting him- like Hamlet's father has done to him. Claudius plans to poison the cup he gives to Hamlet with a pearl, a pearl _from hell_!!" 

    "Now that you have both chosen your weapons for the game, I will drink to your health," Albert began, actually looking pleased with the casting this time, and despite the fact that Nadir never insisted on costumes he had managed to find himself a crown.

   "I think he's enjoying this…" Sarah grumbled, watching Albert looking narcissistically at the reflection of himself in a crown in the goblet for the thousandth time.

   "Soon," Albert murmured under his breath.

   "If my dear son Hamlet makes the first hit I will grant him a treasure of our crown. A gift from myself and my lovely ugh… wife." Albert gestured to Yuber when he spoke, who was sitting very still and looking not a little stunned by misfortune. "My lovely wife has a line," Albert hissed from between his teeth.

   "Argh!" Yuber yelled suddenly, "The bloodiest scene in Shakespeare and I have the only part that doesn't involve murdering someone!!! Why do you hate me god?!" A resounding silence filled the room following the statement as the everyone stopped to stare at Yuber. "I guess that was kinda a stupid question…"  He muttered almost sheepishly.

    "God hates me not you," commented Luc darkly.

    "Is that line in the script?" Lilly asked from the audience.

    "It doesn't matter, it is pretty much in character," answered Lucia quietly so as not to tempt the wrath of Nadir.

    "Casting Luc as the dark moody guy with obvious suicidal tendencies, perfect job," Nash added.

    "Are you being sarcastic?" Yuiri queried, it didn't sound like he was but Nash so rarely wasn't that it was surprising to hear him say something that wasn't. 

    "You know I'm not," Nash answered looking surprised himself.

    Albert scratched his chin nervously, then stole another glance of himself in the reflected surface of the goblet and sighed to himself, "Begin."

    Luc and Sarah immediately began to fight half-heartedly with the swords. They didn't do too badly even considering the humiliating long amount of time it took for the two vertically challenged mages to even lift the swords- even more embarrassing was the fact that they were fencing foils that they were having trouble lifting. Eventually they managed to make a realistic enough pass that it looked like Luc had scored a hit.

    "Yay, go Hamlet," Albert cried in an uncharacteristically show of actual acting, "the treasure is yours." With that he dropped the pearl into the goblet. "Now take a drink."

    "No I'll drink, just get me out of this play!" Yuber declared snatching the goblet from "Claudius". 

    "Do not drink," Albert warned.

    "I will." Yuber retorted drinking.

    Luc and Sarah quickly resumed dueling. "Laertes" finally made a mark on "Hamlet". After which, they dutifully dropped their swords and each grabbed for the sword the other had been holding. The play was delayed again as they both had to make several attempts to lift the swords again with their puny magic using muscles. Eventually they were able to act out a scuffle and Laertes was wounded.

     "No, I have been killed by my own treachery!" Sarah cried falling to the ground.

     "Oh I've been poisoned." Yuber declared also falling. "Hamlet, it was the king, the king is to blame! Kill him horribly, and while your at it kill everyone else."

     "That's my line," Hissed Sarah, "except for the killing part, that isn't in the play."

     "I plan to kill everyone, just as soon as I get my hands on the true runes, but first I have to finish this stupid play." Luc answered in his normal monotone, before advancing on "Claudius." 

     "No Luc, I mean Hamlet, I'm too young and generally studly to die!!" Albert screamed shrilly.  

     "Yuh huh huh," Landis began as Luc killed off Albert according to the script, which he will explain in the narration so there is not reason to explain it twice by giving a description, and I guess it was repeating myself to mention it was Landis speaking the narration when I wrote in his signature laugh anyway because no one else talks like that and-

     "GET ON WITH IT!!!" the audience screamed.

     Right, anyway…

     "Hamlet forced his uncle the king to drink from the poisoned goblet containing the pearl from hell. The same one that had been used to kill his mother. So they all died from poison and their tormented souls haunted the castle forever. The end, yuh huh huh."

     "I'm not quite dead," Albert replied from his sprawled position on the floor, "Ahh" he gasped, falling down again.

    The curtains were falling and almost closed when he suddenly got up again. "I am too beautiful to be killed by mere poison," He gasped unconvincingly, then fell down again- even more gracefully than the last time.

    The curtains were really almost close to closing yet again when, Albert, yet again, lurched to his feet. However, this time before he could speak Yuber leapt up screaming in rage. "I put up with this damn play so I could get the hell out of here and see some bloodshed and you're prolonging it!! That's it, everybody dies!"

    Needless to say- what happened next involved much screaming and bloodshed.  


	9. Cinderella

  Before beginning this chapter I would like to inform my audience about an important charity and what you can do to help. Did you know that everyday the ego of some struggling artist out there is quashed under the brutal reality of their own pathetic lack of talent? But now with only a few seconds of your time you can help. Simply fill out the review box on the lower left of the screen and with two easy steps you'll be on your way to helping feed a starving ego. Fanfiction.net is a fine organization that will always make sure that your donations go straight to needy authors and will not be squandered in distraction fees. Thank you for your time.

Cinderella

   Budehuc castle was anything but bright and cheery. A good number of the residents were only now recovering from extended stays in the greatly expanded clinic. For weeks following the debacle that was "Hamlet," it had been the not quite so maimed taking care of the critically injured. Every water or flowing rune in the entire castle and Iskay had been expended to take care of the various wounds, including the true water rune. People were drafted by Tuta and Mio the instant the were capable of walking- except Borus. For some reason he had accidentally managed to mix arsenic into Nash's food six times after the older man had been caught flirting with Chris. 

    Nadir himself volunteered to help people recuperate, he ultimately decided that to improve morale the residents needed something to take their minds of everything, like maybe….. A PLAY! (cue ominous thunder clash)

   The day of the play found the theater packed, mostly because Nadir had used his powerful casting magic to force the audience to appear as well as the unwilling cast of his play. Anne had finally been persuaded to reopen the bar, because well- people had a hard time taking Nadir's plays without mind numbing intoxicants. Even considering the fact that Nadir's plays were obviously designed for people with incredibly short attention plans, contained only one scene, five actors, and rarely lasted longer than two minutes at best.

    The curtain was drawn. For the new play the stage had been decorated like a rich Zexen townhouse. (Well one made of cardboard anyway… Where the H*** did they get cardboard in a medieval setting anyway?) Sarah and Caesar stood centerstage while Albert waited off to side carrying a broom. Yuber stood angrily in the narrator box which had been equipped with demon wards in an oddly foresighted gesture by Nadir. 

    A long long silence followed as no one on stage did anything. "Yes, I know the curtain is up," Yuber declared irritably crossing his arms, "But I'm not reading this stupid non-massacre inducing fairytale."

    "If you just finish the play, you can go play in the blood donated to the clinic," Nadir coaxed from backstage.

    "I was going to do that anyway."

    "Ah, but do you have a slip n' slide to put all the blood in?" Nadir asked tantalizingly. 

     Yuber smiled as broadly as a schoolgirl who had just managed to decapitate her math teacher, and began the narration, "Once upon a time there was a young beautiful girl whose father had died when he had accidentally run into a pair of swords. She was left with only her stepmother and stepsister as her only family. However they were both cruel and forced her to work all the time while they lived in luxury."

     "Work, work, that's all I do," Albert sighed.

     "Ha ha," Caesar laughed nastily, "clean my shoes for me slave."

     "You would have to be in a fantasy play to get the upper hand on me, even for a little while," Albert shot back.

      "Do as you sister tells you, you ungrateful wretch," Sarah intoned, ignoring the fact that neither had preformed their line properly.

     "Little did either of them know, Cinderella had been blessed by her fairy godmother and had met the prince of the country in disguise and he had developed a demented obsession with her feet. When she fled, the prince had decided to find her and either marry her or cut of her feet and keep the bloody stumps in a glass case beside her impractical glass slippers. To track her down he decided to find the girl who fit the slipper she had left behind upon running. Today was the day he would find her by having every female in the kingdom try on the slipper, and if it was Augustine who fit the slipper than he was screwed." Yuber panted at the end of the long narration, "Wouldn't it be faster to just do a few more scenes than to narrate the whole first half of the plot?"

     "I would have but you slaughtered the stage crew after the first play," Nadir replied acidly. 

     "They were NPC's so they don't count, just like Karayan villagers."

     "Don't count?" Aila demanded furiously, despite Jaques attempts to calm her, "You're just a mass-murdering psycho!"

     "Well if you think about it it's technically their problem," Yuber replied evenly.

     Aila growled and would have done something rash except that she was prevented by both Queen and Jaques this time.

     "Calm down! Think happy thoughts, soda soda soda."

     While things were calming down in the audience, Lucia entered the stage and knocked on the door to the cardboard townhouse.

     "It's the prince," Sarah would have exclaimed if she cared about the play or had any acting ability, but since she didn't, she just said it, "Make yourself presentable." She turned only to find her "Daughters" making faces at each other from across the stage. "Ahem."

     Caesar blinked in confusion for a minute before recovering his composure, "oh right, umm, but mother if Cinderella is here she will ruin my chances. Make her go away."

    "Oh sure, blame your lack of talent on me. I'd say that role suits you really well if you're going to whine just because you can't hold a candle to me," Albert commented snidely.

     "Whoever cast you as the lead needs their head screwed on," Caesar grumbled.

     "Ha! Complain all you want but I win in the end of the play, and that suits me much better than it does you, loser."

     "Only because you whore yourself to the royalty and marry for money. Oh wait, I guess that does fit you doesn't it?"

     Albert sniffed, "They're just responding to my personality."

     Meanwhile the "prince" tapped her foot impatiently and banged on the door again, "Hello, royalty waiting!" Lucia called from the improvised porch. 

     "Coming!" Sarah replied in a slightly louder depressed monotone. "Cinderella, go to the side room and stay there, or else!" 

     Albert sighed and left through one side of the stage while _her_ evil stepmother opened the door to allow the waiting prince entry.

     "About time," Lucia muttered as she walked in, "Is this the only eligible maiden in this household?" she asked gesturing to Caesar.

     "Yes the only one," Sarah agreed.

     "Fine then, try on this slipper." She held up a pillow with a single glass slipper.

     "Ummm that's glass, isn't that a bit sharp?"

     "Hey the other girls were a sport about it," Lucia answered Caesar testily.

     From the side Yuber smiled, "Don't worry," he added sweetly, "I think you have to cut off parts of your feet to wear the slipper anyway."

     "You're probably just making that up, like the eye gouging thing."

     "_King Lear_ does have eye gouging!" Yuber defended, "and just because Disney cut it out doesn't mean there isn't cosmetic amputations in Cinderella! Lets see some blood!" 

     "I think he's right you know," Lucia added.

     "Fine, the real girl is in the closet (hee hee) over there!" Caesar shouted fleeing the stage to go find something more important to do, like maybe take sleeping herbs and nap in the sun with Juan.

     "Caesar left _my_ play!" Nadir growled fiercely shaking his fist, "He WILL pay!"

     Lucia stalked across the stage past Sarah and flung open the door Albert was hiding behind.

     "You, you must be the girl I was looking for!" Lucia exclaimed, "please try on the slipper."

     Albert complied, putting the foot that he had wrapped in duct tape before the show into the slipper and thereby avoiding fatal bleeding- much to Yuber's disappointment.

     "You are the girl!" Lucia exclaimed happily, "Now we can be married and I will punish your family in any way you want for hiding you from me!"

     "If only this was real…" Albert mumbled to himself.

     "What was that?"

     "I said; just treat my stepmother and bro-sister, the way they treated me."

     "You want me to run away from you?" Lucia asked raising an eyebrow.

     "Whatever, lets just finish the play, "Prince." Albert said sardonically.

     However, when he uttered the word "Prince," Lucia suddenly got a strange look in her eye.

    "Don't call me "prince" boy," she whispered menacingly while pulling out her whip, "You will call me QUEEN!!"

    "Hey!" Queen snapped from the audience.

    "The End." Yuber said finally, and the curtains dropped leaving the audience to bustle out of the theater, ignoring the sounds of a scuffle from behind the curtain.

     Finally the room was empty, except for one person. Yuber still stood within the narrator box surrounded with demon wards. "Damnit, the author has done this stupid joke before!" He growled, "I want my slip n' slide! I didn't even get to kill anyone in this chapter. Could there be any way to rub it in even more?"

     Just as he finished that statement Luc appeared on the other side of the darkened stage, his footfalls echoing loudly in the quiet theater. As he approached, Yuber noticed that he had propped his mask up and was eating a Bavarian cream filled doughnut.

     "Oh it's you Yuber. They have free doughnuts in the clinic, right next to the helpless NPC convention…" Luc paused thoughtfully, "What are you still doing here anyway?"

     "Urge to kill rising." 


	10. Pinocchio

   Before I begin this installment, I would first like to thank all of you wonderful beautiful people who reviewed. Yeah You!! However, I have not been as happy with the last two installments as with the earlier ones, I am seriously wondering if its time to retire this series before its just taking up space and memory of ff.net. I have been told that an author cannot judge her work, so I would like some honest feedback. Do you think that this series is worth continuing at this point, or should I wrap it up? If you think I should continue, I would like to be informed about when people think that its starting to suck, because nothing can be good forever. 

_   On With the Show!_

Pinocchio 

  It was a fine day at Budehuc castle, the previous play had ended, no one was killed, and everyone got free doughnuts except Yuber, who was still stuck in the narrator's booth. The bar had remained open for a whole week without incident, so the residents were able to drink until they could no longer feel pain. Even Kidd was happy, as he was certain that he had finally found the culprit in the murder case he was investigating and was even now moving to apprehend the suspect. Tuta meanwhile, was happily running his clean and mostly normal clinic. Mio was also enjoying herself, since Yuber was stuck with nowhere to go, she took it upon herself to "help" the homicidal psychopath with her new amateur psychology knowledge.

    And then Nadir sent out the scripts for the next play…

    There was still time left before the show began, and Mio intended to make the most of it. She had been counseling Yuber for the better part of the week, but the only reaction so far had been for him to try to stab her by sticking his swords as far past the demon wards as he could, but she knew if she kept trying that her perseverance would pay off. 

     The others… well, they just assumed that trying would drive one of them crazy (or crazier as the case may be). 

     Mio got up and left the stage just as the theater was darkening. The curtains were raised; before the audience lay a scene that seemed to be an old item's shop, and most likely one that the flame champion had been selling a lot of junk found on the battle field to. The place was littered with barrels, screws, and bits of wood. In the center of the stage was a battered worktable and on it sat Sarah. Yuber sat in the narrator box looking extremely bored. Beside the table in the corner by the door stood Caesar with his arms stretched out to either side.

    Suddenly the door flew open, promptly whacking Caesar in the nose as Luc walked onto the set.

    "Ow," he complained rubbing his nose. 

    "Be quiet coat-rack," Luc replied taking off his mask and hanging it on the arm Caesar still had outstretched. 

    "I am-"

    "An idiot," Yuber interrupted from the sidelines.

    "Geppetto, a poor toy maker, and I live alone," Luc finished ignoring Yuber completely. 

    "And I am a prop," interjected Caesar, "with nothing interesting to say."

    "So shut up," Yuber sniped.

    "But I have always wanted a child of my own," Luc continued in his monotone voice, "So I have built this puppet to keep me company."

    "THAT BITCH STOLE MY PART!!" Banky roared from the audience.

    "Banky, stop that!" Mel hushed, repeatedly slamming the puppet's head into the table.

    "But- ouch- it was –ow- the part I was- ahh- born to play- owwww…"

    "Oh how I wish that she could come to life," Luc continued loudly, trying to keep up with the noise from the audience.

    "You need an artificial girl to keep you company, you're a loser," Yuber commented.

     "If wishes could come true, then that would be the only thing that I ask for."

     "Hee hee, his only wish is to give his wood some life," Yuber paused, "Did I just giggle??"

     Luc walked across the stage to the bed set up in the corner and pretended to sleep. Soon snoring emanated from the stage, but oddly not from the bed, Caesar had fallen asleep where he stood.

    Light engulfed the room, and the door opened to reveal Albert against a brilliant white backdrop. He opened his mouth to speak, but was immediately drowned out by a stream of curses from the newly awakened "coat-rack" who had yet again been hit in the face.

    "Ahem," Albert began again, waving a wand around, "I am the good fairy, and I have come to grant the wish of this good man."

    "Do I even need to comment on that one?" Yuber asked.

    Albert walked- "sashayed!" yelled Yuber.

    "Hey, you can't interrupt the narration!" Yelled the fanfic writer.

    "I can if I want to!" Yuber shot back

    "Can we finish this? I want to get out of here," the fairy threw in.

    "Fine."

    Albert _walked_ over to the wooden puppet and tapped it with his wand, "wake up."

    "Huh?" asked Sarah, opening her eyes.

    "Wake up Pinocchio, you are now flesh and blood and not wooden anymore."

    "Her acting is." commented Yuber. 

    Sarah glared at him, but continued with her lines, "But I do not know anything about the world. How will I know what to do?"

    "Always let your conscience be your guide and you will do fine," replied Albert, looking disgusted by the cheesiness of his lines, "this is your story."

    "Blatant FFX rip off, Blatant FFX rip off!" shouted Yuber.

    "When the toy-maker, your father, awakens, he will be very happy. Remember that you are now his only child."

    "So that's where babies come from," added Yuber speculatively.

    Albert turned and walked out the door again, and Luc began to pretend to wake up.

    "Wh- Oh, its morning. What an unusual dream I had, I dreamt that-"

    As he continued his lines, Yuber saw something that he hadn't noticed before, "Oh look! A rope is tied within sword range, no doubt tied to something bone crushingly huge that is suspended over the stage." He drew his sword.

    Luc walked across the stage, he flung open the door to his shop- hitting Caesar yet again- to look out over the sunrise, while the now living "puppet" began to move.

    "That does it!" Caesar declared, stalking out from behind the door. "This coat-rack is moving somewhere else. Only something unexpected and extremely heavy could stop me now."

     Ironically enough, Yuber had just finished cutting through the rope, that apparently held the light system directly over Caesar's head in place. 

     After the last of the thunderous crash had echoed into silence, the actors looked over the carnage, "Well the play was almost over anyway," Sarah commented dryly as she hopped down from the table. "Blah, blah, blah, hello I'm your child Pinocchio. I was your puppet, yada yada yada, the end."

     "Who wrote this play anyway?" Luc asked in irritation.

     "I don't know, but he must have been the stupidest person in the world," muttered Sarah.

     As the lights began to brighten, Kidd came rushing in front of the stage, "Everyone, I found who the attempted murderer is!!" He waited a moment for quiet, "It had to be Koichi!" I tied him up last night and so far, Caesar has been safe!"

     "Caesar was just crushed," Luc pointed out dryly, indicating the fallen light apparatus. 

     "Jinkies! Looks like I have another mystery!" Kidd said, bounding off the stage in search of clues- and oddly enough, going away from the crime scene.

     "Okay," Sarah admitted, "The _second_ stupidest person in the world."

     "You forgot Viki the elder,"  Luc commented.

     "This goes beyond even her."

     And the conversation continued on, as the curtains dropped ,and the audience cleared out, and Dr.Tuta ran on stage to help carry out Caesar again.

     The theater was once again quiet and empty, except for…..

     "Hey!! I'm still stuck here!" Yuber shouted, infuriated.


	11. Sleeping Beautytake2

    Well it would seem that the general consensus is that I should continue this fic for awhile. Of course, that means that my fans will have to inform me themselves of when this has degenerated into general suckage. I'll go down in a blaze of Glory! Well maybe not exactly glory, more like a blaze of humiliation, but I am Sooo blazing!

   I have had several requests to include Pesmerga, but I haven't played the earlier Suikoden games, so I was wondering if anyone could fill me in on his personality or point me to a website with his bio or something, all I know is he's Yuber's antithesis or something. 

   _Anyway, I'm hoping to get the musical chapter out soon, but I wanted Yuber to escape the narrator's booth first. If anyone if upset by the way Chris acts, well, try casting her in a play- she is that bad. That and I'm still trying to avoid naming a specific flame champion in this fic, it doesn't change much anyway- I know, I finished the last two chapters three bloody times._

Sleeping Beauty- take 2 

    Budehuc castle lay in a peaceful seeming stupor as the hottest days of summer beat down on the castle residents. Dios sat aboard the deck of the ship, trying desperately to scrub the red dye out of Sasarai's uniform, just as he had been doing since the unfortunate incident in the _Highwayman_.

     "This wouldn't have taken so long if the stupid fanfic author hadn't forgotten that it had happened until now…" He growled irritably. He had consulted just about everyone in the castle on methods of cleaning, but none of the tricks seemed to work, even Luce hadn't managed to get it clean- and she had managed to clean up after Joker and Ace…

    Dios was becoming suspicious of the latest cleaning method, Franz had insisted that rubbing the cloth in Mantor dropping and then scrubbing it with battery acid would get rid of any stain- unfortunately it seemed to be getting rid of the uniform. As if for some reason, Franz was bitter towards the Harmonian government or something… 

    Meanwhile in the theater. Yuber sat idly in the little box and carved another mark into the wall. "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen, nobody knows my sorrow.." Damnit! It had been days now and he hadn't killed anyone, it was driving him crazy-(er)!! All those people, passing through the bar, drinking and looking all happy, and not bleeding or screaming or anything. And then that breathing- the constant in and out, it was so repetitive. He was at the point that if someone would only remove the demon wards, he would be so grateful that he would only maim them. Maybe if he could just convince Mio that he had reformed…

    Elsewhere in the castle, Tuta took another Aspirin and sighed. Caesar had been admitted with a broken nose and multiple head injuries, and was now convinced that he Penguin and a strategist in a cold war somewhere. Albert wasn't helping either- he kept trying to feed his brother raw fish, and laughing. To make matters worse, Mio wasn't here to help him, she was still working on her sessions with Yuber in the theater.

    Back in the theater-

    Yuber hung his head, trying his best to look dejected so that Mio would let him out of the stupid narrator's box. "I guess I've always just used violence as a way of getting attention," he finished pitifully.

    "Well that's marvelous progress," Mio smiled cheerfully, making a note on her clipboard, while simultaneously looking through her second hand copy of A Amateur's Guide to Psychiatry. (Don't you hate people who try to solve all of your problems with a knowledge of psychiatry learned from fortune cookies?) "So why do you think people dislike you?"

     "Because I'm the incarnation of chaos and destruction?"

     "Well that's a good start, why else?"

     "Because I'm always trying to kill them and bathe in their blood…" he added sheepishly.

     "So now that you know, do you think that you can stop?" Mio asked hopefully.

     "Yes'm." So close, soooo close.

     "So what do you do when you see someone now?"

     Damn, a trick question… "Um, not kill them?" He answered skeptically.

     "That's right!" Mio smiled happily, "So what should you do when you meet a group of children playing?"

     Oh the humiliation, he was about to begin when he heard a chuckle from somewhere in the bar- one that sounded oddly familiar… He swung his head around and scanned the crowd. Nothing. "Uh, I should greet them cheerfully and-" He heard the sound again. Nothing was out of the ordinary among the bar patrons as he watched them suspiciously.

     "Oh, I think that's enough for today, Nadir wants to do another casting of _Sleeping Beauty, _but if you get through the play without trying to kill someone, I'm sure I can let you out."

     "Yuber smiled, trying not to look murderous. Yuber watched her leave the room, it wouldn't be long now, but he couldn't help but feel that someone was watching him- mocking him, while he was trapped…

    The people slowly crowded into the theater, ordering food and settling into the seats. Soon, the lights dimmed and the curtains rose upon the now familiar set for _Sleeping Beauty_. Yuber sighed, and began to recite the narration in an uncharacteristically unedited way, "Once there was a peaceful kingdom ruled by a good king and queen who had only one beautiful daughter as their heir. They were very happy until an evil witch decided to curse them, and place the princess under a curse of sleep until she was kissed by her one true love." Yuber groaned inwardly thinking of the next line, _think of the murders, as soon as this is over I will kill them all_, he thought to himself continuing, "Who will be the one to save the lovely princess from her curse?" As he finished the line, he heard the distinctive click of a camera, (They got them the same place they found the cardboard and elevators, okay?) He turned furiously to see it was recording his humiliation, only to see the tail end of someone's long black hair as they slipped out the stage exit. _No-it couldn't be_… Yuber's eye twitched reflexively.

     Sarah and Hugo walked onto the stage from the right.

     "Finally, a decent casting job," Sarah muttered, "Now I will curse you Princess." She said blandly, raising the real wand that she had used in the last production.

     "No," Hugo gasped, trying very hard to act his part despite his mother and Luce pointing him out and whispering together from the audience.

     "Don't worry princess," Sarah smiled maliciously, "I've had practice with this part."

     "Um, you're only supposed to pretend to zap me," Hugo said worriedly.

     "Oh I think this adds to the realism," she smiled and shot a beam of light from her staff, knocking Hugo to the floor. "Crap, why can't they ever fall on the stupid bed?" She leaned over and tried to move Hugo's prone form, just as the sound of a horse began from the left of the stage, "Forget it, he can stay there." Sarah straightened and left the stage as Chris walked onto the stage, followed by Rico, who was again clacking coconuts together for the horse sounds.

      A flash of light enveloped the stage and suddenly the castle was surrounded by paper-meche roses. "Uh-Pri-Princess," Chris stuttered badly, glancing nervously as the audience. After an inappropriately long pause she turned and began expertly slashing through the thorn bushes and entering the castle on the opposite side- and then stumbled heavily over the unconscious 'princess', crashing halfway over the bed before falling, armor and all, on Hugo- who, if he hadn't been knocked out by magic already, would have been knocked out by the weight.

     Chris struggled ungainly to her feet from the tangle on the floor, "Who put that Princess there?" she murmured to herself, before remembering that she was still onstage and casting a look of trepidation back towards the audience behind her. "Oh-um, wa-wake up…." She began lamely and stooped to kiss the princess.

     A clatter of broken glass, followed by a loud clamor was heard from the audience as Borus leapt from his seat, determined to slay Hugo for daring to be kissed by Lady Chris while he was unconscious. The cur! Percival and Leo struggled valiantly to calm him as he worked towards the stage in fury.

    "Its just a play, stop it." Roland begged, adding his own weight to the knights trying to stop Borus.

    "Let me go!" Borus got out, before being tripped by Aila and landing heavily on his face. 

    "Um, you're supposed to wake up now!" Chris whispered fervently to Hugo, who lay unresponsively in her arms. "Hello?" She asked, shaking him. "Isn't he only supposed to pretend to be asleep?" She asked Nadir desperately.

    "Well the witch is only supposed to pretend to knock him out too," Nadir replied, "but she made the opening a lot more realistic."

    "Then how exactly do I finish the play?"

    "Oh," Nadir answered, suddenly thoughtful, "I hadn't thought of that, uh- just pretend he's awake."

    Chris moaned and hauled Hugo bodily to his feet, "Um, ah, oh…", she recited while trying to keep him upright.

    The curtain dropped and to a half-hearted applause.

    Once the play had ended, Mio ran cheerfully up to the narrator's booth, "I'm so proud of you!" She exclaimed happily, "Now I can take these off."

    But Yuber barely even registered her presence. He stood staring at the around the stage wondering, could it be- him??

    Hours later when he did realize that he was freed he went on a killing spree, but that's a given. It happens so often that it isn't really news worthy anymore.


	12. Oathbreakers

   _For the record I'm not giving credit to anyone! MWAHAHAHAHA!! Not Suikoden, Chicago or Mercedes Lackey! I use in this fic. Umm well, they can keep Gulliane, I don't want him…_

   It begins….

   The theater was still shrouded in darkness as the music began, a slow rhythmic tempo that built up slowly in the background. Then low lights began to grow in the background of the stage, casting red light through a set of cage bars, and revealing Chris, Ayame, and Yuber – in revealing jazz outfits?

    "And now, the six- um three merry murderesses of the crook county jail in their rendition of, The Cellblock Tango," A voice intoned from seemingly nowhere. 

    "Pop," began Ayame, with enthusiasm that she never had.

    "Squish," Yuber added sounding suspiciously less homicidal than usual – despite the casting, and oddly enough in a soprano.

    "Cicero," followed Chris with surprising little stage fright considering her temperament.    

    "Pop!"  Ayame sang louder.

    "Squish!"

    "Cicero!"

    The music built as the three continued repeating their lines. Finally Ayame walked to the front, "You know how people have these little habits that get you down? Like Wataru, wataru liked to chew gun. No, not chew, POP! So I can home one day and I was feeling really irritated, and I was looking for a little sympathy," Albert walked onto stage looking irritating, and dressed only in a skin tight outfit. "And there's Ernie, sitting on the couch and chewing. No, not chewing, POPPING! So I said to him, you pop that gun one more time – and he did." Ayame started dancing around Albert as he sat there continuing to look annoying and oblivious, "So I took out my shurikens and a gave him two warnings, straight through his head!" Ayame finished maliciously, knocking Albert to the floor with a flourish and joining the two behind her. 

    "He had it coming, 

     he had it coming,

     he only had himself to blame

     If you had been there

     If you had heard it,

     I bet you, you would have done the same!" They all sang in unison.

     Yuber came to the front and was about to speak when Chris interjected, "Wait a minute! Does this seem in character to you?" She demanded suddenly, the music ground to a screeching halt.

     "What do you mean? I get to stab someone ten times," Yuber answered.

     "Only in backstory, and you're wearing a dress!" She exclaimed, at the same time looking down at her own outfit and blushing furiously.

     "Now that you mention it," Albert added, picking himself up from the floor, "Why am I letting people knock me around, I have more dignity than this don't I?"

     "……!" Ayame added angrily.

     "Yeah!" Agreed Chris.

     "Now that I think of it, since when does Nadir use costumes?" Albert wondered aloud.

     "And who got us to wear this stuff anyway!" Cried Chris, desperately trying to cover up the skimpy jazz dress.

     "It's like someone hasn't had a date in awhile," Yuber agreed maliciously.

     "Th-that would mean…" Chris began.

     "Yes, we're in some fanfic author's sick fantasy."

     Ayame walked over a flipped alight switch, flooding the theater in light and revealing one lone occupant, sitting in a chair and eating pretzels. "What?" She asked innocently.

     "You're the one!"

     "One what?"

     "MARY SUE!"

     Psycofoxx gasped, "Hey, I didn't even write myself pretty, how can I be a Mary Sue?"

    "Oh, I think you were fatter than that," Ayame commented. The fanfiction author suddenly gained an additional twenty pounds.

    "And you have split ends and a bad complexion," added Albert maliciously. The fanfic author hid her face in her hands.

    "And you're covered in horrible disfiguring scars," added Yuber.

    "Hey, now you're just making stuff up!" The fanfic author cried defensively.

    "Oh, I can fix that," Yuber declared drawing his swords.

    "Eeep," Psycofoxx mumbled backing towards the door.

    Suddenly the door flew open as Borus stormed into the room, "I have a bone to pick with that defaming fanfiction author!" He declared loudly.

    Chris sighed, having fully expected him to show up sooner or later to defend her honor, as if she couldn't herself.

    "Why was I left out of this! What, I'm not Bishonen enough for you?!" He asked angrily.

    The entire group facefaulted. 

    "Wh-what?" Chris gasped out in surprise.

    Borus tore off his armor in a swift, and impossible movement, revealing a skimpy leather bondage queen outfit, "Kneel before me you dogs!" He shouted, throwing back his head and laughing, while cracking a whip.

    Then, in Fairbanks Alaska, a college student sat bolt upright in her bed screaming in horror. "GAH! That's the last time I eat chili before bed!!"

   Oathbreakers_ the real fic this time…_

   Sasarai stared in horror at what had been his dress uniform. All that remained of the blue dress shirt was a tattered and scorched scrap of cloth. Dios looked apologetically at the bishop, "I'm sorry I failed in my duty your grace."

    "I suppose I'll have to order a new one, but my undershirt is getting dirty. I need to find something else to wear until the new uniforms are finished." Sasarai answered reluctantly.

    Elsewhere, Mio had decided to take Caesar as her new case study and was trying desperately to convince him that he was not, in fact, a penguin. Unfortunately, he was too busy falling into the traps baited with fish, that were set by Kidd in an attempt to capture the attempted murderer, to really pay any attention to Mio at all.

  While going over an assortment of old plays that Ernie had recently uncovered in the library, Nadir had happened across an old lawmakers song that he decided would make a good production while he worked on adapting the plays, and so it was….

   The theater opened and the crowds entered, as usual, for some masochistic reason they kept coming despite the high likelihood of dismemberment that accompanied Nadir's plays. Today the stage was oddly empty, and the four enemies of Budehuc were sitting in the front row. The residents stared in confusion, until Gordon, Augustine, and Yuiri walked onto the stage. Apparently the play was beginning.

    "The following is a song of law from an old book," narrated Nadir neatly.

      The three people, who oddly enough divided neatly between the sexes despite having an odd number – thank you Augustine, began singing,

      "Cursed oathbreakers, your honor's in pawn  
      And worthless the vows you have made  
      Justice shall see you where others have gone,  
      Delivered to those you betrayed!"

   "This sounds like just my kind of music," Kidd beamed happily from his corner.

   Gordon began to sing alone, 

      "These are the signs of a mage that's foresworn:

      The true gifts gone dead in his hand,"

   Sarah glowered, "They had better not be talking about me!"

      "Magic corrupted and discipline torn,

      Shifting heart like shifting sand."

   "My heart does not shift," Sarah declared loudly, "It's always been on Luc."

      "Swift to allow any passion to run,

       Given to hatred and rage

       Give him wide berth, and his company shun,

       For darkness devours the dark mage!"

    "Wait a minute," wondered aloud, "they always say, 'he' so, maybe it isn't about me…"

    Augustine followed with the next verse in an overdone and extremely loud voice,

       "These are the signs of the traitor in war:"

   "Just for your information this verse is not about me," Albert declared swiftly.

        "Wealth from no visible source,

        shunning old comrades he welcomed before,

        holding to no steady course."

   "I am steady in my plans, my plans are perfect.." Albert muttered to himself angrily.

        "If you uncover the one who'd betray,

         Heed not his words nor his pen

         Give him no second chance; drive him away

         False once will prove false again."

    "Those are just suggestions, I advise against them," Albert cut in.

    Yuiri began her verse in a strong even alto,

         "These are the signs of the traitor to all:

         Hatred of his fellow man."

    "My ears are burning," Yuber said.

         "Only content when he holds them in thrall,

          Their downfall is ever his plan,

          He is ruthless and cruel, he is heartless and cold,

          Lies are all that he can give."

    "Flattery works, your stabbing has become slightly less imminent," Yuber said, nodding in approval of the description.

          "So for his head offer payment in gold

          Suffer the wretch not to live!"

    "Humph, I take it back."

    The three singers launched into the chorus again, with Augustine overpowering both the better singers with his screeching. Finally it came to one of Gordon's solo verses again,

          "These are the signs of a traitor to kin:"

    "Hey no fair, you did me twice!" Albert complained loudly.

          "Greed for the wealth he must share,

          Shedding of shared blood their power to win

          Is that from kin he'll no prayer."

    "Umm, maybe this is about me," Luc admitted, but my brother was keeping the true rune from me.

          "Lust for the flesh of the common source born,

          Shattered each promise to the maid."  
    "Wait, I didn't do that.."

    "I should hope not," Sarah commented.

          "Banish the traitor by kin-bond foresworn,

          give him no shelter or aid."

    Augustine unfortunately continued onto his verse,

          "These are the signs of the treacherous priest:"

    Luc began to whistle innocently.

          "Pleasure in anyone's pain,

          Abuse or degrading of man or of beast,

          Duty as second to gain."

    "This sounds more like Yuber actually…"

          "Preaching belief, but with none of his own,

          Twisting all that he controls

          Fear him, and never face him all alone

          He corrupts innocent souls."

    "But I'm saving their souls by destroying them, don't you see?"

    Yuiri began the final verse of the song,

          "These are the signs of the King honorbroke,

           Pride coming first over all

           Treading the backs and the necks of his folk

           That he alone might stand tall."

    "Actually that sounds awfully familiar," Murmured Chris from her table, casting a sharp glance at the Zexen councilor that was there for some reason.

           "Giving himself to desires that are base,

           tyrannous, cunning, and cruel,

           Bring him down, set someone else in his place,

           Such men are not meant to rule."

    "Do not listen to that stupid barbarian singer!" the conveniently placed counselor demanded.

     The singers were about to finish the final chorus when Yuber umped up from his chair, "Why am I sitting here and not killing people?"

     "Oh dear," Mio sighed.

     While outside, a dark knight watched the scene and waited for his chance. 


	13. Little Red Riding Hood

  It's that time again. Yep, time to look over the new suggestions for plot ideas! Cuz I'm too lazy to think of them myself!

_      Twelfth Night, nothing like a little cross-dressing, is there?_

_      Holy Grail. As long as I'm spoofing it anyway… Yuber the killer bunny!_

_      The Unholy carnage that is Macbeth._

_      FF6 Opera, another excuse to make them sing._

_     Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Now who do we have who's blonde?_

_     Rupunzel, and yet more victimization of the Braid._

_     Snow White and her Vertically Challenged Companions._

_     And the suggestion of mixing plots, that does sound intriguing. Of course, they never do get the plots right anyways, do they?_

_    Kingdom Hearts… Do you mean use the game as a plot or take ideas from the stories that they take ideas from? _

_    The following stories I don't know: Death of a Salesman, Into the Woods, The Crucible, Yojimbo, or Metal Gear Solid (but I know that's a game!)_

    Little Red Riding Hood

    For once, it was not a lovely day at Budehuc castle, in fact the weather was downright miserable. It had been raining almost nonstop since the last play- which for some reason, was the only way the residents kept track of time anymore. Bart's garden had become an overflowing mudhole, the castle's ship had risen several inches above the ramp that was supposed to connect it to the castle, the castle baths were a disaster area, and the dogs were tracking mud across the floors whenever the entered the castle.

    Sasarai sat watching the rain from his room on the ship. The rain would slow down the messengers considerably, delaying the arrival of a new uniform. He sighed to himself, the "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt had only been funny for about 5 seconds…

     Elsewhere in the castle: Kidd was looking through the suggestion box for clues. He was certain that the attempted murderer was still somewhere in the castle, and that they would probably leave clues.

     "Wait, this one isn't addressed to the flame champion…" he said to himself looking down at the small slip of paper.

     "What isn't?" A voice piped up from behind him, making him jump in the air.

     "What who when where sometimes why! Oh, Hi Cecille." He looked down fro the box he was standing on to the intrepid chibi-guardsgirl of Budehuc castle. "Um this letter here, it looks suspicious." 

     "Let me see," Cecille chirruped, snatching the slip of paper from his hand. "Lets see, "……. mutter mutter, destroy the bastard mutter."

     "Hey speak clearly, I can't understand what you're saying!" Kidd complained loudly.

     "But that's what it says!" Cecille protested, showing him the paper again.

     Kidd blinked, "They _wrote_ mutter? Talk about introverted. This must be from the killer!"

     But it seems to be addressed to Yuber, not Caesar," Cecille objected.

     "Now who would want to kill him?" Kidd wondered aloud.

     "I think everyone does…"

     "Exactly! How am I supposed to round up all the suspects with only a handful of prison cells?!" Kidd shouted in frustration, "I have to ask Sebastian to approve funds for a new prison," and with that he was off like a shot.

    In yet another place, a line was forming outside of the bathroom.

    "Who the hell is in there?" A random resident shouted, banging on the door.

    "Why do we only have one bathroom in a castle town with over 108 people in it!" Shouted another. 

    Inside the bathroom, Albert was strutting in front of the mirror singing to himself, "I'm too sexy for my coat, too sexy for my coat…"

(This scene is of no importance whatsoever. I know this scene isn't very realistic as they had no bathrooms in the game. We now continue with our regularly scheduled fanfic.)

    The opening night of the play began- which was a very redundant term, seeing as the plays never lasted more than one night anyway. The theater was crowded as usual, since apparently no one was capable of learning from experience. The curtain opened upon a scene decorated with cardboard trees situated around a cardboard cabin. A very irate Yuber appeared from one side of the stage holding a basket.

    "I better deliver these cookies to my grandmother while she recovers from me accidentally pushing her down the stairs on purpose," he growled.

    "You're supposed to be skipping," Nadir hissed from the side of the stage.

    Yuber glared and walked towards the cabin, ignoring the orders to be cheerful. After several minutes, he glanced over at Nadir, "Is there not supposed to be another actor in this scene?"

    Nadir disappeared behind the curtain, a scuffle was heard, followed by a scared voice pleading not to be forced on stage. 

    "You're the one with experience playing a wolf!" came Nadir's angry voice in response to the begging. Eventually Thomas the castle lord was thrown onto stage; while Nadir stood off to one side with a bayonet. "Just do the line."

     "Ummmmm, wh-where are you going little girl?" Thomas asked timidly,  keeping his distance from the helpless young girl.

     Yuber grinned evilly, "Do you really want to know?"

     "No not really," Thomas muttered, backing away until his back came up to the point of Nadir's bayonet. 

     "Well then, I have a grandmother to kill," Yuber smiled and walked off the other end of the stage, leaving Thomas to gasp in relief.

     "That was your line," Nadir said pointedly to Thomas. 

     "Umm, if he wants to do that in his own, then I can just go then…" He began before Nadir poked him again.

      "The show must go on! Now got eat that grandmother!"

      Thomas sighed dejectedly and walked towards the house and knocked on the door; which was quickly opened by Luc.

      "Why come on in dearie," Luc stated in his most grandmotherly monotone.

      The door closed behind them, followed by growling and a thump of something hitting the floor.

      Yuber walked back onto the stage and headed for the house. The door was once again opened by Luc, Thomas's body was lying on the ground behind him, ripped up by wind (insert your favorite flatulence joke here). "Hi, grandma, have a bovarian cream-filled doughnut," Yuber offer, pulling one from his basket and waving the pastry under Luc's nose.

      "Thanks," Luc commented taking the dougnut – and the falling over in a heap after taking a bite.

      "What? You don't like the arsenic?" Yuber asked sweetly. "And wasn't the wolf supposed to eat you before I got here?" He materialized one of his swords and poked at Thomas's body. "Copper smells so nice when its red and in a thick liquid…"

       "What's going on here?" An actor playing the woodsman demanded, walking onstage, only to be promptly stabbed by Yuber.

       The curtain dropped.

       "Ummm, who did he just stab?" Seamus asked worriedly.

       "According to the handbill, random Karayan villager number #372," Reeve replied, checking the paper.

       "We're lucky those guys aren't unionized," Sebastian muttered, looking over the castle bills.

    "Union?" Reeve asked, looking at Sebastian curiously, "What's a union?"

        "ARGH! Stop spreading subversive ideas!" Lilly shouted, clubbing Sebastian over the head.


	14. Rapunzel

_Well I suppose I should start with a brief explanation as to why this installment has been so woefully late. Actually there are two reasons; the first is that fanfiction.net was for awhile hosting advertisements that included spyware. After having to reinstall my entire operating system because I had crap that spybot and ad-aware couldn't find, I seem to be mostly free, and either fanfiction.net has stopped hosting these sites or XP is just more resistant. Either way (fingers crossed) I seem to be beyond that. The other has been time, I recently started a student job to help with school, I've been working on my graduate school applications and graduating... Well now thats over – now I only have graduate school, work and my upcoming internship. I will try to keep writing, but it's going to be slower than it has in the past._

Rupunzel

Even after the torrential rains that had soaked the castle previously, the garden continued to produce plants and herbs on a timely schedule, and without the season ever changing. And while the enemy was supposedly about to destroy the continent (or appearing in plays against their will, whatever...) the residents continued having exactly the same one sentence conversations they always did, and the flame champion wandered about collecting stars of destiny and trade goods, and leveling up the mighty members of their multi-national army, from the trained warriors of great nations to stray dogs and street orphans; but nothing ever seemed to happen without key characters to witness it, so they were apparently safe from the events outside. Events in the castle however were falling into turmoil.

"WHAT DO WE WANT?" Reeve shouted from a loudspeaker, standing on a pedestol in the center of the Budehuc courtyard.

"Freedom from Lilly's selfishness!" Seamus shouted back as he marched in a circle carrying a sign reading "Union for menservants now."

"WHEN DO WE WANT IT?"

"NOW!!!"

"How dare you do this you filthy lazy traitors?!" Lilly shouted furiously from the sidelines. "Your work was easy, I had to do all the difficult work of planning an preparing, but you were the ones my father was paying!! I can clean my own room without your help, you'll see, and then what will you do, you slackers!! You'll be out of work and soooo sorry...." She continued ranting for a very long time, most people lost interest quickly, including the writer.

In the clinic, Mio was trying to simultaneously counsel Thomas – who had become a nervous wreck, and Luc – was now harboring a deep grudge against bovarian cream filled doughnuts.

Elsewhere in the castle a one sided shouting match was taking place between Kidd and the unfortunately weak-willed butler Sebastian. "You see, we really can't improve the castle dungeon anymore than what we have, and it would be impossible to arrest the entire population of Budehuc castle and the outlying villages..." Sebastian tried to explain for the umpteenth time.

"I suppose you'd rather be at the mercy of the vile murderer thats been running around!" Kidd replied in moral indignation.

Sebastian wiped his brow nervously, "Well you see, if the person is trying to kill Yuber, that's not really a bad thing. And we still don't have the money..."

"Why are you so eager to not have this person brought to justice?" Kidd asked suspiciously, "Do you have something to hide?"

"What? No, I..." Sebastian began.

"AH-HA!" Kidd shouted in triumph, "I knew it! You're the one aren't you!"

The conversation went downhill from there...

In yet another elsewhere (actually the front area where a gate would have been if the castle walls of Budehuc had actually been standing) a messenger from Harmonia had arrived bearing bad news: the harmonian theocracy was out of child-sized bishop uniforms! It would take yet another week a before any more arrived. Sasarai glowered, deprived of his usually boyish smile by the news. Another week in idiotic cast-offs. And who the hell said he wore a child sized uniform anyway? It was called extra petite damnitt!

Finally, as the day ended (kinda – you only ever saw night in cut scenes) the play began.

The Curtain rose to reveal the stage decorated once again by cardboard trees. A tower prop stood centerstage with Yuber glaring angrily from the window. Sarah waited in the narrator box for the show to begin. "Once upon a time," She began in her sleepy monotone, "an evil witch forced a woman to trade her firstborn child for a salad called Rapunzel. Apparently she had issues with the weight gain associated with pregnancy. She named the child after the plant and kept her locked up in a tall tower that only she could enter by climbing up Rapunzel's long hair like a ladder."

"Ha ha," random Karayan NPC #574 declared walking onstage, "you will be trapped there forever!"

"Actually its only about 10 feet down, I could jump," Yuber noted looking at the very close floor of the stage.

"Ummm, that was my only line..." The NPC muttered, "I think I go offstage now...."

"Did you know you're in projectile range?" Yuber inquired sweetly from his vantage point.

The Karayan villager drew his sword. "Oh crap," he muttered just as he was crushed by a falling fifty gallon drum of rogaine.

"Next!" Yuber called, looking down at the playbill for names while carting a value size bottle of shampoo to the window of the tower.

Albert entered from the left side of the stage, followed by Rico who was once again clapping coconuts together for the prince of the play. Albert surveyed the tower dubiously, and then the corpse of the "witch". "I suppose now that no one is threatening me, the optimal strategy would be to get a ladder."

"That's not in the script!" Nadir whispered harshly from offstage.

"Neither are you," Albert replied practically, "and I am better suited to breathing than pulling on a psychotic mass murderer's hair."

Nadir growled. Suddenly an explosion was heard offstage. "All the ladders in the castle have been destroyed," Nadir declared sinisterly, petting a cat, and having picked this moment to develop an eastern European accent, "and all ladder shipments heading towards Budehuc have been diverted. The only way to finish this play now is to climb up the hair."

"Okay fine, I just won't finish the play. Bye." He turned to walk away, only to see a line of stage assistants assembled in firing squad formation.

"The – show – must – go – on!" Nadir said slowly, menacingly.

"STUNT PRINCE!!" Albert cried shortly, stopping in his walk offstage.

Percival appeared on stage, weeding his way through the awaiting firing squad to take his place next to Albert. "Rupunzel," He cried out convincingly in top hero dialouge, "Throw down your beautiful hair..." He was suddenly flattened by a gigantic entire village sized bottle of herbal essences shampoo, cutting off his speech.

"Products." Albert finished for him, watching as Percival collapsed unconscious over the body of the Karayan NPC.

"Stop killing the other players!!" Nadir roared angrily.

"I'm a demon of chaos, what did you expect me to do?"

"You're supposed to be Rupunzel, it's called acting! Isn't anyone serious about the craft?!" Nadir demanded.

"Considering you kidnapped us, I think you're expecting a lot," Albert commented dryly. Then he blinked, "waaaiiit. Yuber, how exactly did he manage to capture you? He's just a support character."

"Actually I just came along because his plays have caused more bloodshed than this entire war so far."

"Just finish the play and climb up her hair!" Nadir shouted.

"Why am I going up again? Doesn't it make more sense to get "her" down?"

"JUST DO SOMETHING!!"

"Rupunzel," Albert shouted non-chalantly, "Walk down the stairs on the other side of the prop that you used to get up in the first place. Now I have saved the damsel," Albert intoned blandly, turning to face the audience in narrator fashion as Yuber disappeared from view.

After his back was turned, Yuber reappeared for a moment to crush Rico under a barrage of vidal sassoon products, before leaving again.

"And they all lived happily ever after, the end." Sarah added sleepily from her box.


	15. Goldilocks

Goldilocks

Now don't have a heart attack from shock or anything, I know this is an unheard of and completely unexpected completely original opening that no one has ever heard of before but...

It was a dark and stormy night. A single light gleamed from the window of the bar/theater. The familiar masked producer looked over the scripts for the upcoming plays – kindly donated by the association of bored people – while another figure in armor waited in the shadows.

"You are sure?" the shadowed one asked in a quiet voice?

"Yes, I think this will work," Nadir answered, leaning his chin on his hand. "If I cast you in the play after this one, the story writer will have no choice but to give you some actual screen time."

"I would have preferred to enter sooner, I finally have him close enough to strike after fifteen years."

"Just wait another chapter or so, it will be a small price to pay to see him humiliate himself. After this one, you will have more pictures of him to post on the Internet" (ummm the Internet is uhhh.... a trade item... from.... ummmm.. Tinto! Yes that's it, from Tinto!)

In the medical ward, Tuta had to give Aila the bad news.

"Aila, I'm afraid that random Karayan NPC is dead."

"Noo! I knew I never should have bought him that red shirt!" she sobbed.

Percival looked over to where they stood, through the curtain of admirers. He had a major concussion from the giant bottle of conditioner, but on the other hand, his hair never looked better, so he had no lack of sycophants wishing him well. Not only that, but he would be excused from acting in any plays for quite awhile, life was good.

Although it was play day, there were still many plot threads to wrap up. Sasarai sat gloomily wearing a bright red shirt decorated with hearts and rainbows, emblazoned with the words "I hate myself and want to die." His new uniform still hadn't arrived, he was close to asking Viki to teleport him to Harmonia just to get one.

Lilly stared at her menu close to tears, Seamus and Reed were still on strike and she had never ordered anything by herself before, she hadn't the slightest idea where to begin. Luckily Anne saw her and took pity on her enough to give her a drink. Unluckily – it was alcoholic...

The curtain was drawn, revealing a cut away cottage in the middle of a cardboard forest. The smaller room contained three beds, while the main room there were three different chairs and table set with three bowls. At the table sat Albert, Caeser, and Nash.

"It was good of you to show up today, little brother. So, you no longer think you have feathers?" Albert whispered snidely.

"Is your boss still plotting revenge against the big bad doughnuts?" Caeser shot back.

"Do you need the straps on your highchair tightened?" Albert growled, apparently unhappy about being cast as the 30 year old mother.

"I have to be the baby?"

"Yes," Albert smiled sweetly, "because thirty is a bigger number than three. You see how that works?"

"Yes thank you." Caeser snapped shortly.

"Lets all sit down for dinner family," Nash sighed, reciting his lines with very little enthusiasm, "In case anyone can't tell," Nash added turning towards the audience, "I'm the papa bear."

"That's the narrator's job!" Nadir hissed.

Nash pointed deadpan at the narrator box where Juan lay passed out.

Nadir groaned, then swiftly took the narrator spot, kicking the still sleeping Juan out of the way, "Once upon a time there were three bears, a mama bear, a papa bear, and a little baby bear."

"Bring on the porridge wench!" Caeser shot nastily at his brother.

Albert glared.

"You know," Nash interrupted matter-of-factly, "In my experience Caeser, women hate being called wenches, that's how I got this scar."

Albert turned around to glare in Nash's direction this time.

Nash grinned nonchalantly, while aiming his wrist launcher from under the table where Albert alone could see it, "Just finish the play so I can get the hell out of here," he suggested.

Albert glared again, but moodily grabbed handed out spoons to the other two. "Here, try our nice mushroom porridge," he said in an overly sugary manor.

"My porridge is a little too poisoned," Caeser growled, looking at the odd assortment of fishhooks and ground glass in his bowl. "Gee, I wonder who made it."

"Well family, lets just go for a nice walk until our porridge cools down," Nash said, ignoring the others. "No need to lock the door or anything."

"Unknown to them," Nadir narrated, "that there house would not be left alone for long..."

"I know, I read the script," Caeser yelled back.

Nash put his hand on Caeser's shoulder it what seemed to be a fatherly way completely in character, and that coincidentally put his hidden wrist launcher right up against his neck. "Just keep walking sarcasm boy," he hissed through his teeth, still smiling.

"Anyway," Nadir continued as they left the stage, "A little girl named Goldilocks was frolicking through the forest, and came upon the hut."

Yuber stormed onto the stage angrily, "I told you last time, I – am – not – frolicking!" He walked over and kicked open the hut's door, knocking it off it's hinges since it was only a prop. "Hmm food to steal, I guess that _would_ cause some suffering. Maybe they'll die of hunger, that would be nice." Yuber smiled to himself at the thought of famine and sat down at Nash's seat at the table. "Oh mushroom porridge." He took a bite and then stopped, eying the porridge intently.

"What happened? Was it the kind of soup that says concentrate?" Viki elder asked, "That happened to me once, the can said concentrate but didn't tell me for how long I had too."

"I'd be embarrassed for you," younger Viki sighed, "but the fact that you managed to understand a word over four letters long is a dramatic improvement."

"Wow, thanks!" Elder Viki answered cluelessly.

The theater was silent for a long stretch of time, "Um Nadir, isn't he supposed to do something else?" Hugo asked from the flame champion table, Geddoe and Chris nodded agreement.

"Y'know," Yuber slurred, pointing his spoon at the flame champion table, "I think the story writer should make a commitment about who the flame champion is in her universe."

"I don't wanna!" Psycofoxx shouted.

"You can't dodge the plot forever."

"I can TRY!"

"Soooo, Nadir." Mamie began, "Exactly where did you get the mushrooms for that porridge? I don't have them, and I don't think Bart grows them..."

"Juan had some," Nadir answered as if nothing was wrong.

"......" The audience responded.

"The incarnation of chaos is slurring his speech," Mua noted, "This does not bode well."

"What kind of mushrooms were those exactly?" Shizu asked worriedly.

Yuber giggled, "Hey my arms are like cosmic, they can touch anything except themselves!" he waved his hands through the air randomly, and then touched them together and stared at them in fascination, "Wooooaaahh."

A camera snapped somewhere, unnoticed by the others.

"Um, at this time the bear family was returning home," Nadir narrated, watching the stage with trepidation.

Nash, Albert, and Caeser walked onto the stage from the side. "Someone's been eating my porridge... and I guess that's it." Nash said. "Well no harm done, I guess she can just leave."

Quite suddenly, Yuber jumped to his feet and sliced the table to splinters with his materialized swords. "It was moving!" Whipping around, he spotted the three, "Argh! It's the doughnuts!" He shouted, "GLADIATOR!!" And with that he charged right past them and off the stage screaming.

"That was... akward." Albert noted.

"I missed something," Nash said, equally stunned.

"The End," Nadir added, and the curtain fell.


	16. Beauty and the Beast

_Okay, I finally added Persmerga, although I'm still not sure about his character. If it seems off... its because he changed during the 15 year interval. Yeah thats it... I do have another fic running now, but it shouldn't interrupt the updates to this one too much. I will keep them seperate because I want to keep this one completely non-political (Kerry feeds off the blood of children!!!) and unrelated to my gripes with biased media coverage._

Beauty and the Beast

Finally!! Sasarai could not have been more overjoyed by the appearance of the Harmonian courier carrying his new uniform. For some reason, Aurthor and Kathy also seemed to be waiting for the delivery to arrive.

"This is Budehuc, right?" the messenger asked dismounting. "I have a new uniform for the bishop, and some trade goods that were ordered."

"Oh good, my bubblegum and silly putty!"

"Mah neon pink dye!"

"Just give me the uniform already!" Sasarai said in an uncharacteristically grumpy mood, since he was now wearing a census 1402 T-shirt..

The courier began opening his bag, and then stopped, staring into the bag in horror. "Ummmm it seems that the package was shaken up a bit in transit. The containers of dye and silly putty broke open, and this dry cleaning bag ripped..."

Elsewhere, Juan woke briefly from his nap, "Was that an earthquake?"

"That is what it's called when the ground shakes, Juan" Caeser answered.

"Will you two shut up? I'm hung over!" Yuber growled.

"Who invited him anyway?"

In three different elsewhere simultaneously: Hugo, Chris and Geddoe looked up from what they were doing, "Hark, is that a true rune going haywire?"

"Did you just say 'hark'?" Queen asked, trying not to burst out laughing.

"I'm not sure, the author didn't make it very clear who said that." Geddoe replied dryly.

"I think 'Hark' sounds like a ironhead word myself," Sgt.Joe said calmly.

"Zexan is NOT a renaissance fair!!" Borus replied angrily.

"Wait, I thought we were all in different places," Chris said thoughtfully.

"Damn your right!" exclaimed Joker, "the author is being lazy again."

"So if we have been moved to the same place, where are we exactly?" Hugo asked.

"God damn, I'm sexy." Percy added, admiring his hair in the bathroom mirror..

"Did the author just say 'bathroom'?" Leo asked with trepidation.

"Nuh huh huh," Landis laughed, carry a rubber duck and completely naked.

Goro was happily scrubbing the counter of his shop when suddenly the Southern Harmonian frontier defense force, the six knights of Zexan, Hugo and sgt.Joe suddenly raced passed him screaming from the men's bath.

"Hey! Why were Chris, Aila, and Queen in the men's bath?" He yelled after them, "And how did you get in there anyway?? And if you wanted to scrub out your eyes, you should do that _in_ the bathroom!"

In the basement of Budehuc castle, Reed and Seamus had been arrested by Kidd or social disobedience.

Lilly sat outside the cell gloating loudly, "This is what you get for disobeying me! You never should go on strike when you have a duty to to me!"

"Why were you trying to murder Yuber?" Kidd questioned, trying to drown out Lilly.

And finally, in the theater, a play was beginning. The seats were filled with the usual crowd of people, except for Lucia, who for some inexplicable reason had a strong feeling that fate would not allow her near a certain actor in this new play.

The curtain opened to reveal a paper rose garden surrounding a cardboard castle, Albert waited in the narrator booth beside the stage. "Once upon a time," he began, "A merchant was caught in a trap by a beast in a castle, and to save him, his daughter agreed to go to live with the monster. Which was strategically a stupid thing to do, since once her father was gone she could have inherited everything he owned and advanced her own interests."

Yuber walked onto the stage, "Finally! (wow, dejavu) I am a not the female character in the show! And as soon as the wench does show up I'll stab her good."

"Wait, you cast me as the beauty??" A voice came from behind the stage, apparently directed at Nadir.

"Too late to back out now," Nadir whispered back as the audience stared at each other quizzically.

"When she got there the castle seemed to be empty," Albert narrated, raising his voice to cover the argument in the background.

Yuber shrugged and walked off the stage opposite the voices.

Suddenly a mysterious figure in black armor entered from one side of the stage, "Allright, where is he?" the figure demanded, whirling around and leavig the stage by the enterance he had come in by.

"So, where's that woman I get to maul?" Yuber demanded, reentering the stage with a random tech working NPC still impaled on his sword. He dropped the body and stormed out through the back.

"A dead body?" the armored figure asked, returning, "Sounds like something Yuber would do, where is he?" he stood up and left through the opposite side.

"This is starting to look like one of those stupid shows where two people chasing each other keep missing each other," Albert noted blandly as always, "Except for the lack of Piano music."

"Doo doo doo da da DA dada da..." Shabon began.

So after a long predictable scene in which Yuber and the armored figure entered and exited the stage in various fashions to the overplaying sound of Shabon's improvised piano music, which really wasn't that interesting at all, so the author omitted it and let the audience go get themselves snacks or something, they finally both entered at the same time.

"Finally, (how many times do I need to use that in one chapter, I wonder?) I caught up with you!" the dark haired armored person said, pointing his sword at Yuber.

"Hi Priscilla." Yuber replied.

Persmerga gagged, "I told you to stop calling me that!"

"Well you are a damsel in this play, right?"

Persmega muttered darkly and we may assume viciously.

"Did you skip your developmental speech lessons? Your muttering is worse than ever." Yuber noted, "It's almost a shame to kill you since I hate helping people, and I think the librarian is close to a berserker rage at your poor grammar."

It was true, Emily had reach a shade of red never seen before and was shaking with barely contained fury at the incoherent mumbling.

"You fool!" Persmerga replied, "I have perfected the ultimate technique of kung fu fighting, bad English translations and inaccurate lipsynching!!"

"You're bluffing!"

"I kill you. Enough talk, now fight started!" He said, while his lips kept moving.

"And then the beast was transformed into a handsome prince," Albert narrated, despite the complete lack of agreement on the stage. The confused stage technicians likewise followed orders and a bright glow fell over Yuber on the stage.

Yuber ignored it, and continued his standoff with Persmerga. "Your bad dubbing doesn't affect me you fool, this is a text fic!" he declared, materializing his swords.

Before either of them could fight however, Emily burst onto the stage and single handedly tackled both of them. "MANGLE GRAMMER WILL YOU!?!? AND BREAK THE LAWS OF PHYSICS BY HIDING TWIN SWORDS IN YOUR SLEEVES??? YOU MAKE ME SICK, I'LL KILL YOU ALLLLLLL!!!!!!!!"

The curtain fell, concealing the site of the carnage from the audience.


	17. Snow White

_Welcome back! I know it has been a long time between update, but you no longer have to worry because "Suikoden vs. the Media" has been banned (under that claim that it was a listfic..) so I will no longer be legitimately distracted by other Suikoden fanfiction, but I have been slightly held up by being banned for awhile following the removal of my other story. I've also noticed that this story has become more tying up loose ends, than events in the playhouse, umm I hope no one minds too much about that. The villains have also stopped escaping after each play is over, there isn't a reason for that, I just stopped doing it. Finally, since I have reached the 100 review mark, I've decided to add the villain's character profiles as a bonus._

BONUS FOOTAGE

Luc: He's nihilistic, acting has no more meaning to him that anything else. He really only here because Nadir kidnapped him.

Albert: He has the ability to act, as evidenced by his ability to dupe and double cross half the known world. However, he has absolutely no desire and tend to speak in a monotone. He can be used as pointless mancandy...

Sarah: She's here because Luc is. She only cares for roles that suit her personality, but you have to be careful because that tends to awaken her sadistic side. Probably best to leave her as the narrator.

Yuber: He doesn't want to act, he wants to stab things and watch them die in agony. He has a tendency to indiscriminately kill actors, technical crew, audience members, directors, fanfiction authors and readers.

Snow White

In the hospital ward of Budehuc castle, both Persmerga and Yuber were in traction. IT was a brief lull into between the periods of activity when Mio would come in and fluff their pillows while spouting meaningless psychobabble, and the times when Ernie would insist on tutoring them on grammar (neither was very good at that and they could not really pass a C level even after spending almost all of their skill points), and lecturing them on the fact that she was the castle tutor NOT the librarian. (Yeah I knew that, who said I didn't!!) Persmerga had given up speaking again since his tactic of badly translated dialouge had failed.

"I will kill that little girl as soon as I get out of here!" Yuber growled for the hundredth time.

"......"

"Hey! You didn't do any better did you?"

"......."

"Well who knew she had that many skill points to put into fighting skills! She's a support character after all."

"..........."

"I'll kill you when my arms heal, too."

"......."

"Hey, I never noticed that you had an Australian accent."

Elsewhere, Bishop Sasarai was desperate. He was wearing a Hello Kitty T-shirt, this had to end! He had finally decided that he had to take matters into his own hands to get his new uniform, he was asking Viki!

He though, in retrospect, that this had probably been a bad idea. But of course, that hadn't really hit him until he heard her say "oops" while casting the spell. Incidentally, he also discovered that he hated being hung upside down over a cooking pot by cannibals in a country he'd never heard of before even more than he hated pink hello kitty T-shirts.

In yet another place, Seamus and Reed were still in prison because they just have to suffer, HAHA!

"Lilly is still trying to press charges here, sorry." Franz sympathized while he stood on guard duty for the fire bringer. "I was in prison once too for saying something."

"Why?" Reed asked, Franz's opening had been so obviously a line dedicated to setting up a joke that he felt sorry for him and played along, since they were both prisoners of the same demented fanfiction author.

"Well actually it was while I was in Harmonia, one of the bishops asked me to sing a religious song... I sang "Go down Moses." He really wasn't amused."

The clanking of overly loose armor distracted them from their conversation (such as it was). Cecille charged around the corner out of breath, "Good news! For the good of the castle, you guys are being freed!"

Seamus jumped up, actually smiling, "YES! It's a good thing Thomas decided to let us out before we went crazy!" He turned around to the empty cell after Cecille released him, "Goodbye sparkly elves!"

"Oh and one more thing!" Cecille added hastily, "Since you quit your old jobs, Nadir decided to cast one of you in his new play.."

"OH DEAR GOD NOOOOO!" Seamus screamed.

The play opened that night, much to the marching drumbeats of DOOOOOOM!!! Ummm, anyways...

The curtains opened to reveal a plain room with false wall standing on one end that held a mirror frame over a cut out hole. Luc waited in the center of the stage, while Seamus stood in the narrator booth.

"Once upon a time," Seamus began, "there was selfish bitch who cared about nothing but herself and spent all her time looking in the mirror."

"HEY!" Lilly shouted from the audience.

"So like an egomaniac, she asked her mirror for advice."

"I only did that once!!!"

Luc looked over to the mirror cut out where Albert had appeared. "Mirror mirror," he repeated in a bored monotone, "on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?"

Albert hummed contentedly, gazing affectionately at the handmirror he was holding.

"AHEM!" Luc coughed in a really loud monotone.

"HUH? Oh, its snow white. She's better looking than you." He snickered, and went back to looking in his mirror.

"Goaded by insane jealousy, the evil queen decided to plot revenge." Seamus narrated.

"I think I'll go plot revenge now." Luc said.

"She decided to have a huntsman kill snow white while she was out in the woods collecting flowers."

"She'll be collecting flowers, and I can have a huntsman kill her." Luc noted blandly.

"So she called the huntsman and..."

"This is getting really annoying Seamus!!!" Lilly screamed from the audience, jumping from her seat.

"Well you were the one who insisted that I should follow directions without thinking," Seamus shot back nastily.

"Not thinking was always your strong point! I was the brains behind everything!"

"You lost all of our travel money by going overboard!"

"I did not!"

"And then you bet my pants on a horse race!"

"Did not!"

"And Lost!"

"I WON!" Lilly snapped, sitting back down. She was certain that he point was made.

"I am going to call a huntsman now." Luc continued blandly as soon as the theater quieted down, as though nothing had happened.

Sarah walked onto the stage. "I have been called." She sighed.

"I have called you to kill Snow White for me. I want her heart in a box."

"Your starting to take after Yuber, Master Luc, I think you need a vacation."

"That is a disturbing request, I think this queen has problems." Luc agreed, while Nadir put his head in his hands.

"Well at least she does better than Reed, he's over there experimenting with a odd type of flashy magic to get Lilly's attention on how well he's doing without her."

"Yeah, I suppose that is bad, but then again, everything is pointless in the long run."

"Is it not customary," Albert asked while leaning against the frame of the "mirror" "To pan over so the audience can see what he's doing?"

"What are you still doing here?" Sarah asked angrily.

"The play hasn't ended yet, so I can't leave."

"SOMEBODY LOOK AT ME!!" Reed shouted from an alcove, where no one looked.

"I bet you can't escape because even Nadir could beat you up." Caeser added snidely.

"No that's not it, little brother. I finished reading the self defense guide for wussy support characters, so if he moves really slowly and shouts instructions, I could beat him!"

"Anyway, just kill Snow White, okay?" Luc said in a slightly desperate monotone.

Just then, Twaikan entered the stage. "I need to go to the forest to dig holes for flowers!" He stated happily.

"Okay, Twaikin as Snow White is where I draw the line, this actor must die." Sarah muttered darkly.

"Now who's taking after Yuber?" Luc commented.

"I think Yuber has enough bad influence for both of us, and they all really need to die." Sarah answered calmly, gripping her wand.

"That's true enough."

Things did not go well for the rest of the night, but as usual, everyone was still alive the next day. Except for the NPC's and non-stars of destiny.

In one place however, things remained the same....

"HEY!! You can't end the story here!! I'm still stuck! If you end it here it'll be months before this is resolved!!" Sasarai screamed in a very uncharateristic fashion as he swung upside down.


	18. Macbeth

_Well I'm back again, and hopefully this chapter will be funnier than the last one. I get to start my internship soon, yay. I'm thinking I'll have more problems with the administrators than the kids, "ooh look at us, we'll ban hats because they're somehow gang related!" So, I'm probably going to hate the world soon, not that I don't already, what with graduate class teachers responding to questions on the homework with "I explained it clearly in the syllabus" even when I only asked after reading the bloody thing five times and asking other members of the class and none of them understood what she meant either! Anyways, have fun._

_**Surgeon General's Warning: The department of health has made absolutely no effort in determining the potentially dangerous effects of this fanfiction, read at your own risk.**_

It was a beautiful spring day at Budehuc castle, and Nadir was toiling endlessly to prepare the upcoming play, but he was stuck. "How can I convert the witches speech in the short time alloted to the plays?"

"......" Persmerga suggested as he walked past.

"That's brilliant, eloquent yet whimsical!"

Elsewhere, Sasarai was still hanging upside down over a cooking pot.

In the infirmary –

"WAIT!" Sasari shouted from the previous segment, "You can't just skip over me! I've been here for weeks!! Just finish this segment so I get OUT!"

Mio was talking to –

"NOOO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"

Yuber who –

"I WILL KILL YOU! HARMONIA WILL CRUSH YOUR PATHETIC COUNTRY WHEREVER IT IS AND I WILL BOMBARD YOU WITH EARTH –"Just then, a passing cannibal shoved a gag into Sasarai's mouth, ending his tirade, but you can bet he was glarrrrrring.

Was just getting out of intensive care, after being pummeled by Ernie.

"As I was saying," Mio continued, "Since we have helped you here at the clinic, the least you could do is not plot to destroy the world."

"I already did a favor for you." Yuber growled.

"What was that?"

"I didn't kill you during the last show."

Mio put her hands on her hips, "I don't see how not killing someone is the same as doing them a favor."

"Well, if you don't appreciate it, I could kill you right now."

Mio narrowed her eyes, "Do you have any conscience at all? Like an angel and devil that sit on your shoulders or something?"

"Yes. One says that I should slaughter all life on earth and feast on their remains while they still live, watching them writhe in agony and bask in their blood and their death cries."

"I...seee."

"And then the evil one says..."

Macbeth

That night, the newest play (scene) began. The lights dimmed over the theater lighting up a stage that revealed a drab grey scene that looked like Landis had decided to become Martha Stewart and redecorate. Thunder and lightning crashed in the background, and managed to ignite the edge of the curtains. Technical worker screamed, the stage hands ran, the audience was escorted out.

The next day, the newest play (scene) reopened. The lights dimmed and revealed a slightly scorched looking drab grey scene. Someone banged on a metal sheet to simulate thunder while someone else flickered the lights, and no one used a thunder rune for special effects. This made progression to the actual acting part possible.

Sarah, Albert, and Estella walked onto the stage.

"What have you been up to?" Albert asked Estella blandly.

"Actually I had to fly to the sun to pick up some new cosmetics, did you know that most of the stuff we use is made out of berries that grow there?"

"Sister, where thou?" Sarah asked Albert, ignoring Estella.

Albert sighed, "I myself have all the others, and the very ports they blow, yadda yadda yadda this scene is too long, just cue the drum already."

"A drum a drum, Macbeth doth come!" Sarah chanted.

Yuber marched onto the stage from the side, "You're ugly."

"That's not in the script!" Nadir hissed from the side.

"I was summarizing, this big long paragraph just says their ugly."

"Actually, I think Macbeth just calls the weird sisters men," Albert cut in, "I personally don't find that insulting."

Sarah pulled out a copy of the script from behind her, "No, I think he was saying that he couldn't really call them women because they have beards." She cast a sideways glance at Estella's five o'clock shadow. "Imagine that."

"Women with beards have very strong magic potential," Estella noted loudly.

"Wow, I wish I was a woman with beard," Rody murmured dreamily from the audience.

"All hail Macbeth the thane of Glamis, for now..." Albert continued.

"I was thane of Cawdor once..." Estella muttered, "But the hamsters ruined that for me."

Sarah glared, "All hail Macbeth who shalt be king hereafter."

"I could just kill king Duncan..." Yuber mused.

"I think your wife is supposed to suggest that you take the throne." Albert complained, "And you really should think it through more than that."

"Huh? Throne? I just thought it'd be fun, but while you're at it, I think the thane guy is alive, so am I supposed to kill him to?"

Sarah raised her wand and the three witches vanish.

"Fine, I don't care anyway." Yuber muttered angrily.

"Macbeth!" Luc declared, in a very urgent monotone. "The king says congrats on winning and all, and you get to be thane of Cawdor."

"Wait a minute, I haven't killed that thane yet."

"He was killed by someone else and stuff." Luc paraphrased, yawning.

"Fine, I'll just kill someone else then."

"Be my guest." Luc responded, walking of the stage before the became "someone else."


	19. Killer Bunny

_Hello again. I know I'm a bit tardy in this chapter, but I've been really busy with classes. At least we've finally gotten some rain here. In case you missed it because the major new companies don't know Alaska exists, we had a extremely dry hot summer up here, which lead to the worst fire season in recorded history. This summer over 6 million acres of Alaskan forest burned down, coming as close as twenty miles to Fairbanks, and forcing the evacuation of several villages. For most of the summer we had a smoke cloud larger than Texas hanging over interior Alaska, sometimes it was so bad that we couldn't see the sun, and had to wear face masks outside (and on the worst days I wore mine inside too because the stuff seeped in). Anyway, I know that's irrelevant, but I felt like ranting. _

The Killer Rabbit

Dios paced worriedly about his cabin on Budehuc's castle's ship. Sasarai had been missing for weeks now, and he still had no news on where he'd gone. Author had mentioned seeing him approach Viki about teleporting to Harmonia, but she could not remember where she had sent him, or if, or his name... or her own name for that manner. Viki the younger confirmed to him that the bishop had been sent somewhere, but even she could not know where if Viki had miscast the spell. There was nothing to do but wait for him to return on his own.

Suddenly, the door flew open, thunder crashed, and many other cliches happened as well. Standing in the doorway, was Bishop Sasarai, looking bedraggled, smelling like he'd been marinated in garlic and seasonings, and looking very disgruntled. "I finally did it," he exclaimed with a fanatic gleam to his eyes, "I escaped the damn author's trap, I'm free."

"Ummm, Bishop... Sasarai?" Dios asked tentatively. "Is that a sprig of parsley behind your ear?"

Sasarai narrowed his eyes and didn't answer, "Did my uniforms arrive while I was gone?"

"Yes sir."

"Good, now I'm going to take a bath." He declared, turning on heel with as much dignity as he could muster in a 'Hello Kitty' T-shirt.

Elsewhere, Reed paced the hallways near Lilly's apartment carrying a box of really nifty looking odds and ends. He didn't really have anything to do with them, but he wanted to show Lilly that _he_ was doing something worthwhile, even without her. She would see that he was having a great time on his own, he didn't think of her at all. That would show her. He was his own man, not like Seamus. Seamus decided to go back to being her bodyguard after renegotiating the contract with her. He obviously had no dignity whatsoever, was he going to revolve his life around her? HA! How pathetic.

In the bathhouse, a serious discussion was taking place.

......... Toppo said solemnly.

.......... Watari agreed.

........... Argued Jaques.

..........? Persmerga asked.

...........!! Watari explained.

....!!!! Jaques shot back.

The discussion went on, until Sasarai stormed in, "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY UNIFORM!!" he shrieked, holding up the now shrunken blue uniform, too small for even him.

........ Said Persmerga.

"Oh shut up Auzzie, I don't need your sympathy! I just need to figure out what happened!"

Goro poked his nose in from the other side of the curtain, "I actually think that that cloth shrinks when its wet."

Sasarai stared at him with a look of horror and disbelief.

At that moment, Dios came running into the room, "Bishop Sasarai!" He called, "Make sure you don't get your uniform wet!" He screeched to a halt as he entered the bathhouse, looking down at the miniature uniform.

"A little late, isn't it?" Sasarai asked testily. "By the way," he asked, glancing Dios up and down speculatively, "Do all the uniforms shrink like this?"

"Ummm yes." Dios replied warily.

That evening, the audience of the play bore witness to Sasarai, wearing a slightly adjusted, waterlogged uniform, and Dios in a Pink 'Hello Kitty' T-shirt.

Darkness fell over the audience as the play began. The curtains pulled back to reveal a cardboard sideview of what looked like it should be a cave. Albert, Luc, Duke, and Yuber, emerged from the left of the stage, all three villains patently refusing to walk as though they were riding horses, despite the neat sound effect that Rico was making with coconuts from very far away from Yuber.

"Behold, a cave. Have fun." Yuber said, pointing one sword at the cardboard entrance.

"Alright, keep me covered," Luc said flatly, as if he couldn't care either way.

"What with?" Albert asked, yawning and rolling his eyes.

"Yep, you do that, nothing to worry about." Yuber said gleefully.

The four stood there as nothing happened. "I think that your cue," Albert called offstage.

"Yeah, come out little bunny!" Duke snickered.

Geddoe walked out from the mock cave, glaring, and wearing a set of fluffy bunny ears.

"Go pet the cute little bunny," Yuber encouraged eagerly.

"Where?" Luc asked.

"There," Yuber pointed. Duke burst out laughing again. Elaine giggled from the audience, turning long enough to shoot Queen a nasty look.

"What, behind the rabbit?" Luc asked, ignoring the fact that his line no longer matched what 'Tim' was saying.

Yuber raised an eyebrow, "Look, I'm already NOT the homicidal monster in this play, I am not going to say something is more vicious or foul tempered than me, now just go send someone to die before I get mad!"

"Yeah, go on Duke, chop his head off."

"Finally some action!" Duke said cheerfully, walking forward as he drew his sword. Ans he very promptly walked into a rain of stabbity death.

"Oh wow, look at him go." Luc commented as Geddoe pummeled the living daylights out of Duke.

"I think the bunny comment really got to him."

"KILLKILLKILL!!" Chanted Yuber. "See I told you!" he added.

"You told us to pet the bunny," Albert corrected.

"As long as someone gets hurt," Yuber shrugged.

"Charge." Luc sighed, walking over to the 'bunny' with Albert.

"Roar, roar...." Geddoe sighed, making half-hearted sweeps with his hand, only succeeding in mussing Albert's hair.

"Run Away, run away" Albert Yelped, racing to the side of the stage and restyling his hair frantically.

"Wow, you really match your character don't you?" Caesar commented snidely from the audience.

"I suppose your ragtag army is about as threatening as a bunny." Albert shot back, still fussing over his hair, as Luc "ran" back to the left side of the stage. Geddoe sat down on a styrofoam rock and removed the bunny ears.

"I'm beginning to think that this is a very silly play," he muttered. "How many did we lose?"

"No one," Yuber stated dejectedly, looking at that mostly corpseless stage.

"Would it help if we ran away more?"

"Sounds like you kind of plan Albert," Caesar shouted.

"Still one more battle than you'll ever win, you drug using loser!"

"Pretty boy!"

"Moron!"

"This is more childish than their fist fight," Lucia complained.

"We don't have bows." Luc said blandly, hoping to finish the play as soon as possible.

"Huh?" Albert said, just now realizing that he was still on stage, "Um, well Duke already tried the taunting idea. We have the holy hand grenade."

"Weee! Explosives!!" Cheered Yuber.

Sarah walked onto the stage, "Has anyone ever considered just killing Nadir instead of doing his plays?" she asked while tossing Luc the grenade.

"Permanently kill off a PC? That's just crazy talk!" Murmured the audience.

"It worked with Jimba."

Another murmur ran through the audience.

"Will someone stop that!" Nadir said in exasperation.

Yuber pulled a sword from nowhere and slashed in through the air, "I got the murmur!"

"He just killed a random Karayan NPC!" Aila shouted.

"Big deal," muttered Sarah.

"Here, deal with the grenade," Luc sighed, tossing the grenade to Albert and slumping down.

Albert caught the weapon and looked at it as though it were a rabid weasel dancing in a tutu, "I don't know how to use one of these..."

"First take out the holy pin, then count to three, no more no less, and then lob it at thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall.... Just do it already." Sarah snapped.

"Ooookay," Albert answered, looking at the grenade as though the rabid weasel had just asked his sign. He pulled the pin quizzically from the grenade, and promptly threw that at Geddoe while still holding the grenade.

"Oh shit." Commented Luc, somewhat less blandly than normal, "Sarah?"

Sarah opened a portal at their feet, teleporting Luc and herself form the stage, while both Geddoe and Yuber ducked in opposite directions.

The blast knocked the curtain from where it hung, covering the stage in the aftermath. The audience stared bewildered for a moment.

"I always hated those things," Viki commented finally, "Why not just throw the ball instead of the pin? Whoever designed them sure was stupid."

The curtain opened and Yuber stepped out nonchalantly, covered in blood. "I think he may need some help with breathing and eating Mio." He stated grinning, "Just make sure he doesn't starve to death to quickly."

"You actually care?" Mio asked, starry eyed.

"I just wanted him to suffer for a prolonged period of time before dying, that's all."

Mio sighed, "I guess thats a close as you come, isn't it?"

"I'll come closer to stab you."

And the theater emptied.


	20. Opera

Aria De Mezzo Carrattere

Reed was working furiously on his new invention. On look at it and Lilly would have to realize that he wasn't concerned about her at all. It didn't really do that much per se, it actually just sparkled and made occasional buzzing noises, but not that she would be able to tell. The bitch.

....... Persmerga commented. looking over the design plans.

"Wow, you're right," said Percival, looking at the flaw.

Reed blinked, "Okay, seriously, does anyone actually know what he's saying? I feel like I'm in the emperor's new clothes or something."

Everyone stared at Reed, who began to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

"Man Reed, you don't have to make fun of someone just because he has an accent!" Seamus criticized.

"Yeah, Reed," Alanis added.

Meanwhile in the hospital ward, Albert lay stretched out on one of the beds, bandages covering almost every inch of his body. Mio and Tuta had left the ward empty, to leave him a few minutes with his comrades, it didn't look good. The sad scene music had already cued up in the background.

"You can't die now," Protested Luc, "I haven't destroyed the world yet!"

"My only regret," Albert gasped, "Is that I never had enough power, and now it's ending. I'm too pretty to die."

"Yeah, pity that," Yuber shrugged, looking gleefully at the blood.

"Umm, I hate to interrupt," Sarah interrupted, "But I do have a water rune here, I could just heal him."

The sad music playing in the background ground to a screeching halt.

"Oh right." Albert said blinking, "Lets do that instead of my tragic death scene then."

Nadir sighed from the doorway, "Sigh, its too bad, that would have made a lovely tragedy, but nevermind, since your well, I have apart for you in my new musical!"

Albert looked up in horror. "I think I'll take my tragic death scene back," he muttered.

Duke watched the scene from traction, if his jaw hadn't been broken in five or six places, he might have made a cheesy remark, but alas this fic lacks Duke's amazing wit and humor. You will just have to do without.

The day of the play brought with it a sweltering heat, partly due to the unrelenting summer of the world they lived in, in which no seasons changed, and partly because the fanfic author had used up most of the good "the weather suddenly changed, ha!" twists, excluding natural disasters. In fact it was so hot that the full plate armor worn by the Zexan knights was heated up enough to fry an egg. A fact that many Karayans found very amusing indeed. In fact, many of the children had taken to sneaking up and cracking eggs over Borus' head and running away while he clanked furiously after them shouting curses, before falling down in a fit of heat exhaustion. Even in the relative cool of the theater, his face was redder than the last time Chris had worn a skirt on a windy day (which incidentally, she never had, but you can imagine what he would have looked like had that happened anyway. Suffice to say he'd be pretty angry. And Chris would be very flustered. And anyone who wolf-whistled would be very very eviscerated.) It was only made worse when Mamie offered to hire him for the castle restaurant. The other knights had wisely chosen to dress down for the duration of the weather.

Reed however, was now sporting a white jumpsuit covered in rhinestones, and was pointedly not looking at Lilly, except for the occasional surreptitious glance to see if she had noticed how he wasn't paying attention to her anymore.

Lilly, on the other hand, was lost in her drink. She had decided that she really liked Captain Morgan, ever since the half finished joke about Anne giving her an alcoholic beverage several plays ago.

The curtains opened, revealing a castle set pilfered from Romeo and Juliet, only without the garden, and a lot more dismal.

Luc stood tapping his finger against the railing to the narrator box in boredom, Caesar slouched center stage looking even more bored, which was not an easy task. Both sighed dejectedly in tiredness.

"The West and the East were waging war. Draco, the West's great hero, thinks of his love, Maria."

The stage fell silent. Nadir hissed angrily from backstage. Caesar started, awakened from a doze, "huh? Oh. Umm, Maria, Maria."

"The forces of the West fell, and Maria's castle was taken." Continued Luc in a bland monotone, without pause of inflection. "Prince Ralse, of the East, too her hand by force. But she never stopped yearning for Draco."

"ZZZZZZ...." Finished Draco, before he was dragged off the stage by stagehands.

Albert soon appeared in the balcony of the castle.

"Oh my hero, so far away now.  
Will I ever see your smile?  
Love goes away, like night into day  
Its just a fading dream."

"Is this like a fancy version of "Row Your Boat"? Ace asked, nudging Joker.

"How does that go again?"

"Merrily merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream, or something like that." Queen answered.

"I'm the darkness, you're the stars.  
Our love is brighter than the sun.  
For eternity, for me there can be,  
Only you my chosen one..."

"Wow, he's actually good at that," Commented Nei from another table.

"I think he went to finishing school," interjected Nash from another table. "So he knows all about singing, personal groomin, and drinking tea with his little finger out."

"Well ,either way, I don't think Maria was supposed to be a an alto." Nei answered, yunring back to the stage.

"Must I foget you.....ARGH!" Albert yelped as he tripped over the bouquet of flowers lying on the stage and fell flat on his face. He growled uncharacteristically and kicked the offending flowers over the edge of the balcony.

"No, you're supposed to do that later!" Nadir moaned, putting his face in his hands.

Yuber walked out onto the balcony, "Ralse wants a dance partner Maria." He stated, kicking Albert's ribs.

Albert struggled furiously to his feet. "Stop that!"

"Okay fine, I'll just decapitate you instead." Yuber grinned, materializing his swords.

"Yuber, don't cut his head off." Luc ordered, as though he was lecturing a homicidal kindergartener.

"Why not? He's breathing! That is so annoying."

"We need him and his big head to plan our battle strategies."

"Fine!" Yuber declared exasperatedly, turning away. "Wait, I can still do stuff to his legs then, right?"

"Fine, whatever." Luc Shrugged.

"NO!" Interjected Albert.

Yuber sheathed his swords growling, and stormed off the set, while Albert walked down the steps to the open stage in front of the castle. Sarah entered from the left.

"The survivors of the West attack." mentioned Luc, not even bothering to use an exclamation point.

"Impossible..." Sarah muttered, in an equally monotone way.

"Attack!" Yawned Caesar, stumbling onto the stage, "Wait, Albert??"

"Maria!" Nadir corrected.

"I'm supposed to be fighting for you?" Caesar asked, for once sounded almost as annoyed as sleepy, which was a feat for any emotion with him.

"If your fighting prince Ralse, I supposed I'm going to end up in the East forever." Albert glared.

"Well, it is like you to go to whatever side is winning!" Caesar snapped.

"Its just because of me that my side wins. Not that you would know the feeling, I've seen wet rags with more tactical sense then you have!" Albert sneered.

"Hey! The weather patterns were just in favor of Lord Soggy that day!"

"Sarah, err, Prince Ralse, maybe you should shut him up before he comes up with an even more pathetic comeback," Suggested Albert.

Sarah remained silent for a moment, then looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling to the stage, and then teleported out of the room.

"Wha?" Albert began, before the screeching sound of rending metal interrupted his train of thought. Albert and Caesar has time to look up before the lightning fixture above the stage came crashing down on both of them. Yuber laughed maniacally from the catwalk above stage.

Luc shrugged and left the narrator box.

"Noo! My epic duel scene!" Nadir cried.

"Actually thats how it ends in Final Fantasy 6." Nash pointed out, and this seemed to be true enough, so the crowd quickly emptied the theater. All except for Kidd.

"I will find the one responsible!!" He shouted dramatically.


	21. Alice in Suikoland

_Yay__, another later chapter.__ I have no life in this program. I've started teaching my first unit all by myself, and while that has nothing to do with the story, it does help to explain why I've been too busy to write all that much lately -- besides lesson plans and homework assignments. That and my car was stuck in a snow bank north of Cantwell overnight while I was trying to drive home to Anchorage for Christmas, but then, I was south of the avalanche, so that wasn't so bad... I didn't even slip on the ice, the wind was blowing hard enough that it shoved my little car sideways off the road, then the truck that picked me up went off the road, the van that picked me up after that got me to Cantwell, but it took about an hour to drive the last couple miles there, since we couldn't see the road or anything... This has nothing to do with the story either, but I like complaining._

_On a more related to the story note, I have this neurotic habit where I hate doing things out of sequence, and I had one story idea left from the last batch, but I can't think of a good way to do Twelfth Night! Grrrr…_

_Oh, and from now on, If I can't do a new chapter, I'll at least try to revise one of the earlier chapters to remove all the obvious typos and stuff._

_Ummm__ anyway, some of you may have thought this fic was dead, the rest of you only wished, but here's the next chapter._

  
Alice in Wonderland

Nash stared irritably into the refrigerator in the Budehuc castle kitchen.  
"Just what are you looking for?" Mamie asked, looking at him quizzically.  
"The cheese I put in here last night."

"I think it's behind the milk."

Nash glared defiantly, "I can't look behind the milk."  
"Why?" Mamie looked thoroughly confused.  
Nash sighed in exasperation, "Because, if I look behind the milk and the cheese isn't there, the milk wins."  
Mamie looked even more confused.

Yuber walked by and stabbed the milk randomly, stalking off to torture the poor defenseless invalids in the hospital wing.  
Nash poked aside the remains of the decapitated milk jug to look behind it. "Lousy smug milk." He muttered, before turning to leave, completely cheeseless.

Meanwhile, with the helpless invalids.....

To avoid a repeat of the last time the two Silverberg brothers had been in the same hospital at the same time, Dr. Tuta had decided that they needed a little more medicine than usual -- a fact that was infuriating a certain sadistic homicidal maniac to no end.

"Does it hurt when I do this?" Yuber asked, punching the bandages over Caeser's right arm.

"No, not really." Caeser giggled.

Yuber was incensed, NO ONE giggled in his presence.

"Nothing like a horrible stabbing pain?"

"Like the multiple stab wounds you're inflicting? Nope, sorry." At which point he promptly fell asleep and began snoring loudly.

Yuber glared angrily, ready to give him a severe stabbing, but.... his snoring could still be used in creating suffering in the world. Yuber grinned and turned to Albert, who lay in his bed staring at the ceiling.

"Do you think that's annoying?"

"Hmmmm?" Replied the tactician, lacking his usual dignity.

"See listen, your brother is snoring right next to you! Don't you hate noises like that?"

"Ummmm normally, but Dr.Tuta gave me this little needle thingy and now eeeevvveeerything is cool." and then he had the audacity to giggle!

Yuber materialized his blades, SOMEONE was going to die horribly... At which point Tuta walked into the clinic.

"Ummmmm Hi...."

It was opening night for the newest play, the lights shone brightly on the stage which revealed a grassy meadow in bloom, or more precisely, a painted backdrop designed to look like a grassy meadow, and a very poorly designed one at that. In fact, to be brutally honest, the backdrop looked like it had been attacked by a madman with a green paintbrush. Someone had helpfully scribbled "grass" and "flowers" and drawn little arrows pointing to the chaotic jumble of green.

Tuta sat among his group of friends in the audience, "So, I won't bore you with the exact details of my miraculous escape, but did you know what Landis has down in the secret tunnels under the castle?" He was saying as the play began.

Sarah sat at the base of a brown stripe on the background, that if one squinted and made a huge leap of faith, could look like a tree. Luc sat opposite her, reading a book. Nash sat next to Sarah on the stage, looking very much put out and drumming his fingers angrily against the floor.

"…….." Persmerga said from the narrator's box. "…………"

A hush fell over the audience at the masterful delivery

"Are you paying attention to your lesson, Alice?" Luc asked blandly, resting the book on his lap.

"Hmm, oh yes, I was." Sarah sighed, and then grinned evilly, patting Nash on the head, "Right, Dinah?"

Nash glowered, continuing to drum his nails, "Meow."

"So, can you recite your lesson?" Luc yawned.

"How doth the little busy bee…. You really don't care if I really know it or not, do you?"

"Meh."

"…………………………." Persmerga recited and Luc got up to leave the stage.

He began reciting for a very long time, so long in fact that some in the audience were beginning to tire of even Persmerga's eloquent narration. In fact, once questions were raised, it became clear that his narration had ended several minutes ago and what followed had been silence. A few more moments followed, someone coughed uncomfortably, a tumbleweed appeared from nowhere and blew across the stage.

"Cue the rabbit!" Hissed Nadir.

"No." Someone very irritable growled from off stage, someone old enough to look like a strip of beef jerky with an eye-patch.

"Look, I played the cat." Nash sighed in response.

"You wear the ears then." Growled the off-stage voice.

"Call in the stage technician ninjas!" Nadir growled in response.

Almost immediately, a horde of Karayan stage technicians swarmed past to the edge of the stage, trying to pull Geddoe, bunny ears and all, onto the stage to suddenly run past Alice. The bunny however, was not co-operating and certainly did not look to be in a hurry to rush across the stage trailed by an over-inquisitive girl.

A little known fact about Alice in Wonderland, or perhaps one not actually in the story but improvised by an actor, is that the rabbit in from the story was related to the killer, vorpal bunny from Monty Python…. Or at least that was how it appeared a few seconds later as the steadfast and even-tempered captain got very well and truly into character. The scene that followed was enough to remind the quickly fleeing audience or the last time Wan Fu had called Yuber a sissy – incidentally, it was also the first time that had happened because those very same effects had discouraged any repetitions.

Hours later, the remaining stage hands had finished mopping up the blood and had begun work repairing the damage to the stage and curtains with the help of several volunteers from the among the castle residents. They were used to this considering most of Nadir's plays ended in bloodshed. What they weren't used to was Yuber banging his head against one of the bar tables and crying.

"Why is he doing that?" Bart whispered to Percival, eying the distraught psycho-killer distrustfully.

"Well, there was massive bloodshed and he missed it."


	22. Romeo and Juliet take 2

Budehuc castle was recovering from the last fatal play that had doomed their theater. The blood was mopped up, the stage repaired, and Anne had managed to walk Yuber home after he'd been on a drinking binge of bloodwine after missing the carnage of the last play. Amusingly enough, Yuber appeared to be a very tame drunk. In fact, while completely sloshed, he had stopped by the hospital wing and sent gift baskets to all the injured Karayan NPC's, a fact which caused Tuta to have a near fatal heart attack, which event greatly cheered Yuber up and he resolved to make sure the attack was fatal next time.

Meanwhile, the two strategist brothers had been released in full health, only the time in bed had taken its toll and Albert had sustained severe hair related injuries and to spend several days at the hair dressers. Caesar would have been picking on him, only after all that time in bed, he knew that he needed a nap.

Romeo and Juliet

And so, the night of the play began in the newly renovated theater. Sebastien sat worriedly in the front row, terrified that another catastrophe like the last version of this pay would occur, causing even more money to be funneled away from the war effort. IN fact, the profits that might have come from preforming the plays was negated by the need to repair or rebuild the theater every time a show was held, not to mention the lawsuits piling up from the next of kin of all the random Karayan NPCs. (Now we all know that he didn't really have to worry about that, considering it was going to happen no matter what he did so he might as well have accepted it, or had a psychotic episode. No really, he could become a short chubby Yuber with dual pens! And then )

_We are sorry for the inconvenience. The author has been stabbed repeatedly in the back with a bic pen by unknown parties; we will get to the bottom of this, we have our best man on the job._

Caesar: I will catch the culprit if it means eating an entire cheesecake and taking a nap!

Kid: I don't see how that could help...  
Caesar: It couldn't possibly hurt! ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZ

Psycofoxx: I'm so glad my life is in such good hands.

As for the doomed play.

The lights in the theater dimmed, revealing - the very little, until the stage lights came on - and then revealing the familiar set to "Romeo and Juliet". Sarah stood on the balcony overlooking the scene.

"Romeo, why are you Romeo" She said flatly"must be from Tinto..." she muttered as Sasarai walked onto the stage.

"I take you at your word: Tell me that you love me, and I'll be re-baptized; Henceforth I will not be Romeo." He said with a dramatic flair that said he was actually acting, something that caused Tuta to have another near fatal heart attack, and Yuber wasn't there to prevent it from being near... It was known that Sasarai, like his brother, tended to speak only in monotone, but today seemed different, and of course he was getting the lines right, a feat rarely accomplished by the other drafted actors at the castle.

"Seems you're a little short to be hopping walls." Sarah commented, looking down at Sasarai.

"Lightly spreading the wings of love, I came over these walls."

"My family is going to kill you, or I will, I don't like you." Sarah replied.

"There lies more peril in your eyes than twenty of their swords. Give me just your kind glance, and I will be invincible."

"I'd like to see that actually." Sarah said, glaring at him as non-kindly as possible.

Sasarai dutifully walked behind the cardboard plants beside the stage. A clash of metal was heard offstage. The sound grew louder and suddenly Yuber and Persmerga burst onto the stage in a mad dustball fight, wheeling around eachother in a frenzied whirlwind of blades. The first row of the theater quickly cleared itself of people, all except for Nadir, who was waving his hands desperately, trying to stop the two sword wielding psychopaths from ruining his play.

"Well this is going to ruin my garden." "Juliet" grumbled.

"Wow, look at 'em go." Commented Percival.

"They sure can move fast."Barts added.

After a few moments of slaughtering the scenery, the two fought their way off the other side of the set; managing. along the way, to slice the support beams to the prop balcony.

Sarah fell to the stage with a crash and a splintering of wood, as well as a stream of distinctively unladylike phrases.

"Madam" Salome called from offstage.

"Shut up." Sarah growled. dusting herself off as she climbed to her feet again.

"Wait" Nadir shouted as she pulled out her staff. Sarah shot him a nasty look and teleported herself from the room.

The audience looked up at the empty stage and shifted uncomfortably. Apparently, that was the end of it... Some began to get up to leave, Anne made last calls, and very soon everyone was filing out of the theater.

"Juliet, although we have just spoken, must we part already" A THOUSAND times the worse to see you leave. If you say that you love me, let me see your face once more. Aaah, Juliet, the one for me! Sleep dwell upon your eyes, peace in your breast! In that peace and in that sleep I might also share, if only I could be by your side" He delivered his lines masterfully before the darkened theater, stopping dramatically for the time that would have been allotted for Juliet to answer, had she not escaped the clutches of the play earlier. He seemed not to notice the wreckage of the balcony, or the emptiness of the theater. At which point he made his romantic exit, lost on all the audience which was not there. Once off the stage, he pulled off his headphones, the thin stains of "I like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie" could be heard faintly from the phones.

"I was right, these plays are so much easier if I ignore everyone else." Sasarai smiled gladly, he should have thought of this before the "Highwayman."

Inside the theater, the front of Juliet's manor collapsed forward, revealing Salome still sitting inside the maid's section, reading a book.

"Hey, don't look at me. I only got one line."


	23. Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night

It was a sunny day at... Iskay village? The tranquil background music skreeches to a sudden hall and the camera pans from Budehuc to Iskay The villagers all say along the remains of the fences, watching a dustball moving in furious circles beyond the gates. A vendor was selling popcorn to the bystanders.

Eventually, Yuber and Persmerga and Seamus? broke apart, both breathing heavily from the fight that had brought them from the theater to Iskay without stopping.

"What are you doing here?" Yuber asked, glancing over to the former manservant who he was sure hadn't been there before.

"I need attention." Seamus sobbed, hanging his head sadly.

Back at Budehuc castle, Ace, Joker, Nash and Percival were soaking in then men's bath.

"Now, I know that lady Chris is everybody's first choice, but who would you say is the hottest woman here besides that?" Joker was asking seriously while pouring himself another cup of ale.

"Are you kidding?" Ace answered, "Have you seen the rack on that Jeane woman? Allthouugh, I still think I have a shot with Elaine, if only..."

"That woman, is insane." Joker responded thoughtfully.

"Sheeesh, aren't all women?" Nash cut in, "Take lady Chris and her irrational distrust of me!"

"First of all," Percival interjected, "I wouldn't call that irrational, so much as expected. And secondly this whole conversation is ridiculous because no one compares to Lady Chris even remotely. I mean, did you see her in" He was abruptly cut off by a very irate Borus storming in, who had previously been waiting outside for his turn in the baths.

"How can all of you sit around objectifying women like that! How do you think Lady Chris would feel if she heard you going on in such a disrespectful manner? Perhaps you could learn a few things from the manners of women!" He grumped.

All the men in the tub hung their heads in shame for the crimes of their gender.

Meanwhile, in the women's bath...

"So who do you like?" Queen asked, sipping her ale seriously.

Aila coughed, "Well, I don't usually go in for the white meat... but if we leave personality aside, that Percival has a hot little butt for an ironhead that is."

Chris blushed furiously from her side of the bath well, maybe it was true... or maybe the ale was getting to her head.

Elsewhere, Albert and Caesar waited behind the curtain for the beginning of the play, and what else? Arguing.

"This is all your fault brother."

"You're the one who decided to help Luc destroy the world, while you're in it!"

"That did not cause this play."

"It did cause the allies to form up at Budehuc and hire Nadir."

"Why did you hire Nadir anyway? What exactly does he do here?"

"Ummm... welll, I don't have to justify myself to you, so there." Caeser replied, sticking out his tongue.

"Some random guy asks to move in and join you army and you just let him in?"

"That's how its done! This is a fantasy game!"

"You're stupid army would be so easy to infiltrate, anyone could be a spy and you wouldn't even know!"

"Actually," Nash interjected, "They all know I'm a spy, and they still let me stay."

"That's even worse." Albert smirked.

"Go tell it to your psychiatrist."

"I already did, and she said I should remove stress in my life by going back to a time when I was happier, but I guess you're here for good."

"I can fix that!" Yuber volunteered from nowhere, and promptly stabbed Caeser without waiting for a response. "You should kick him a few times while he's down too." He added.

"I don't want to get blood on my new shoes, these are guchis!" Albert paused, "I suppose I should be more upset that you just murdered my brother, but..." he shrugged.

"Actually, I'm only bleeding to death." Gurgled Caeser from a pool of blood.

Yuber sighed in exasperation, "There, you see what your inaction has caused? He's alive."

At this moment, Nadir walked backstage to give a few tips to the actors and stopped in horror. "You just killed my Andrew!" He exclaimed angrily.

"He's not quite dead." Yuber corrected, kicking Caeser in the side for effect.

"Well he can't play the part, you'll just have to do it for him." Nadir declared and left.

"Welcome aboard, Andrew." Albert said sardonically.

The curtain to the stage opened, revealing 'Andrew' and a profusely bleeding 'Toby' in the center of an empty stage. Sarah waited, leaning against the railings of the narrator's box.

"The maid Viola, having disguised herself as a man and hidden in the court of the man she loves, is being challenged to a duel by the suitor of the woman who has fallen in love with Viola thinking she was a man."

"Jerry Jerry!" Shouted Martha from the audience.

A hush fell over the audience as each head turned to look at Martha quizzically.

"Sorry, the story just sounded familiar." She said sheepishly.

"Anyway..." Sarah said slowly.

"I have no idea what my lines are supposed to be, but I hope I get to fight..." Yuber mused to himself. He poked Albert with the tip of his sword, prompting his line.

"Yeah... he wants... to... fight..."

"Yipee."

Luc and Borus (who was apparently done being affronted) walked onto the stage.

"He's... scared..." Mumbled Albert to Luc.

'Fabian' yawned, "So's my idiot here."

"I can still hear you! Cur!" Borus yelled at Luc.

"Don't ruin the play, or you'll dishonor lady Chris." Sarah taunted.

Borus ground his teeth, but fell silent.

"So, he still wants to fight." Luc confided to Borus.

Borus glowered and mumbled.

"What, I didn't catch that?" Luc asked.

Sarah snickered.

"Mutter, a little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man..." Borus muttered irritably.

"Give ground if you see him furious." Luc said, almost gleefully, but not quite losing the monotone edge to his voice.

"Why won't…. this play….. end?" Albert whimpered, "I'm…. too… cool…to die."

"Go starve to death while watching your reflection." Caeser growled back from his separate pool of blood.

"Your… Greek mythology reference… is lost… on half your…audience."

"Do I have a line, or do I finally get to kill someone?"

"I don't want to do this." Borus said, sounding quite otherwise as he drew his sword.

"Yaaay, a fight!" Yuber cheered, materializing his own swords and racing over the prone bodies of the two strategists.

At this point the Impending Doom sign flashed over the stage, informing the audience that now was the time to file out of the theater, which they all promptly did, even as Borus and Yuber began fighting along the track worn into the floor by Yuber and Persmerga's last fight.

"AND SEAMUS!" Seamus added to the fanfic, so that he wouldn't be forgotten.

Mio walked onto the stage, coming towards the poor bloody sods who were only barely alive. "Oh dear, more bloodshed." She sighed, "Someone has to teach Yuber some manners." Just as she was about to reach the needy, Seamus ran back onto the stage holding his hand and crying for attention.

"AGH, a bee stung me with its stingy stinger!" He cried, "Oh, the stinginess!"

"Oh you poor thing!" Mio exclaimed, taking him by the arm and escorting him away.

"You see?... This is why... I'm helping ...Luc ... destroy humanity, ...they deserve it..."


	24. Who's on first?

_Another very late chapter, somewhat inspired by the fact that I recently saw a few episodes of the new Dr.Who series owned by the biggest Who fan outside of the United Kingdom._

In Which a Play Fails to Materialize (And there was much rejoicing).

Nadir paced angrily across the stage. He had a perfect play to perform, he had almost all of the actors, he just needed the flame champion to play the lead, but the flame champion was not here!

"Interesting how the fanfiction author writes that sentence so that no gender is mentioned, isn't it?" Sarah asked Luc blandly as the villains sat drinking sodas at the bar, after being called in to preform and then ignored by the frustrated producer.

"I'd say she's going to do it again to..." He sighed.

"Shut up! Pyscofoxx growled.

"Watching you write is like watching my poor crippled brother wheel himself across the floor before stabbing him in the head." Yuber muttered.

"You murdered your crippled brother?" Anne asked from behind the bar.

"Well, it would have been cruel to let him live after what I did to his legs!" Yuber replied.

Kidd walked onto the stage, "Nadir," He exclaimed excitedly, "I found out who the flame champion was looking for!"

"You did? Where?"

"He was around this weird blue box thing in the middle of nowhere."

"Who?"

"Err, yes, how did you know?"

"Know what?"

"Who the doctor was."

"Doctor who?"

"Exactly."

"What's his name?"

"Who."

"The guy the flame champion found."

"Who."

"The guy by the blue box."

"Who?"

"Look, if they found him, he must have a name, right?"

"Yes."

"And do you know it?"

"Yes."

"THEN WHAT IS IT?"

"Who."

"Damnit Kidd, this is serious, what is the name of the person that the flame champion went looking for a few days ago?"

"Who."

"I said his name!"

"Yes you did."

"So give it to me!"

"Who."

"Fine, if you won't tell me, get me that older woman... What'sherface.."

"Apple."

"No, I'm not hungry, just find that woman."

"Apple."

"NO! But since you mention it, I could use a salad. You can get it while you find her."

"Apple?"

"A salad! Or get me her student."

"Ceaser."

"That sounds good, now find the guy."

Kidd sighed and left the stage while Nadir continued to pace.

Sarah looked over to where Dr.Tuta was sitting, "Maybe you should put him out of our misery doctor, I think his stupidity is terminal."

"At least it was my brother volunteered for cannibalism." Albert cut in before Tuta could recite the Hippocratic oath in moral outrage."

"Funny isn't it?" Luc commented blandly, "I always assumed Sebastian would be the first to go when they started eating people."

"Does anyone think this episode is actually funny?" Sarah asked in exasperation.

"Let's face it," Yuber said, "Comedy is a dead art form. Tragedy however," He grinned, "Now that's funny!"

"Gee, that comment is as intelligent as its source." Nash snarked acidly from his barstool.

"Are you saying I'm dumb because I'm blonde?" Yuber asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Noooo, that actually has nothing to do with the reason I think you're stupid, but I suppose the fact that I am blonde won't dissuade you from your reasoning."

The following drunken bar brawl was removed for violent content. The censors advise you to go watch grass grow for a while in relaxation.


	25. Three Little Pigs

_Hello again, after a long time. I know I said I would be correcting older chapters but… Y'know, stuff. Anyway, I think I'm running out of juice for this series, but I want to finish the suggestions I already have. So, basically, I have about a dozen ideas that I want to finish up, but I will not be taking any more suggestions for new play at the moment. Maybe by the time I finish the ones I have I'll feel up to continuing, but that's not likely to be for awhile anyway. Any suggestions on how to do plays already suggested are still welcome._

The day dawned bright and sunny over Budehuc castle, as usual. Also as usual, the entire army was milling around doing nothing. The flame champion was meeting in the main room of the castle deciding the next random course of milling around and going up levels to take.

"So," Possible flame champion #1, ie Hugo said, "We should send Chris and five other people to investigate a problem in Alma Kinnan?"

"We're agreed that someone should go anyway," replied possible flame champion #2, ie Chris, "but why only send six people into a possible battle when we have hundreds here practicing plays and shining boots?"

"Those arguments withstanding," Possible flame champion #3, ie Geddoe, said, "We're still only sending six."

"Alright then," Chris nodded, "And thanks for the input Persmerga."

"..." Persmerga answered solemnly.

Meanwhile...

"Are you sure you aren't here just to steal the donated blood supply?" Tuta asked the tall blonde psychopath skeptically.

"No really, I just like being near all the pain and suffering supplied by a hospital!" Yuber answered smiling, "I won't be contributed... much."

"Ummm..." Tuta trailed off, trying to consider a polite way to refuse the dubious volunteer. "Do -- do you have any medical background?"

"I've preformed a few mercy killings." He said proudly.

"Umm, we have a no kill policy..."

"You should try dying, you might like it."

"That's exactly what they said about being alive."

Yuber shrugged and stabbed him, "Fine, be that way."

Chris leaving and running into trouble didn't defer Budehuc castle's enthusiasm for the latest of Nadir's plays, mostly because enthusiasm was so low it couldn't drop any more than it already had. The draft for the newest play had been sent out the actors; the script wasn't chosen, but the actors were drafted, and having no choice in the face of Nadir's awesome power, they had to take part in the play.

The Three Little Pigs

"Ho ho ho, once there were three adoooooorable, pink, little, luscious piggies." Guillaume smiled from the narration booth as Sasarai, Thomas, and Hugo appeared on stage, literally, with a little help from Vikki.

"Hey, we're on stage!" Growled Hugo, "She lied to us!"

"So-- So we haven't really escaped?" Thomas asked timidly.

"The Bitch, she's been on his payroll all along! No wonder she never gets cast!"

"I really don't like the way this guy is looking at me..." Thomas murmured, edging away from the drooling Guillaume. "Why did you recruit a pedophile into our army?"

"That's a very good question." Sasarai mused, giving Hugo an odd look.

"And they each built a home to protect them from the dangers of the big bad wolf!" He leered.

"Might as well get this over with..." Hugo sighed, shutting himself into the plastic straw house on the stage. Thomas followed suit, heading into the plastic stick house, while Sasarai shut himself into the brick house.

Luc walked onto the stage, surveying the little prop huts amiably.

"Woof." he said moodily, tapping the straw house with his hand, causing the flimsy construction to collapse in a pile.

"Oh no!" Hugo cried, sprinting into the stick house while trailing bits of plastic.

The stick house collapsed as Thomas hurriedly slammed the door, sending bits of plastic everywhere.

"That was easier than I expected." Luc smiled as the two boys were revealed in the debris.

"D'OH!" Shouted Thomas, backing away.

"To the unbreachable citadel!" Shouted Hugo, racing the two foot distance to the third house.

"Woof." Luc said blandly, walking to the third house.

"Hohoho, but huff and puff though he might, he could not knock down the house of bricks."

"WOOF!" Luc shouted, kicking the house. "What kind of plastic is this anyway?"

"It's plastic mock-brick over real brick to be realistic." Explained Nadir.

"Blowing wind didn't help at all, so he…"

"Funeral Wind!" Luc shouted, causing half the stage to erupt in dragon shaped wind, slashing the stage and the brick house apart, fake and real bricks flew into the air, knocking out Guillaume and killing a random Karayan NPC.

The three little piggies lay bloodied in the wreckage.

"The End." Luc shrugged, walking away from the stage.

"Is there a doctor in the audience?" Hugo groaned.

"I think my legs are broken," whimpered Thomas.

"Dios, get the infirmary."

"Doooon't worry," A familiar psychotic voice said sweetly, "I'm here from the infirmary."

Sasarai looked up at the grinning Yuber in a nurses hat in horror, "Oh crap."

"CRAWL YOU FOOL!" Hugo yelled to Thomas who was inching away on his shattered legs.

"Can't you use you true Mutter mutter rune to help?"

The resultant true rune action, that would have told who had which true rune, was never seen by human eyes because the curtains fell at that moment. Dropped by Reed.

"I don't need her, I have a new job…"


	26. Peter Pan

Seeing the carnage that was Yuber's "infirmary" had made Luc consider something.

"Exactly what is he doing for our cause anyway?"

"You want to destroy the world, he causes chaos and destruction, it works out." Albert explained, styling his hair.

"I was going for a little more precision."

"That's not what you said before."

"You're going to do a flashback, aren't you?"

"It's the only way." Albert answered regretfully as the screen went wavy.

Flashback waviness and music

"So..." Slightly younger masked Luc said, nonchalantly.

"You're planning a coup and need my help, right?" Answered Albert smuggly.

"Actually, I'm not going to take over anything, I just want to pout the world out of its misery."

"That's suicide, I'm not interested, and you can't tempt me otherwise."

"Really? There's nothing you want?" Asked Luc while waving a designer scarf.

"Damn," Albert said snatching the scarf, "I forgot you could tempt me with stuff I want."

"Now that that's over with, what's you plan?"

"Well, to cause as much chaos and destruction as possible, we'll need, well, metaphorically speaking, we'll need a deal with the devil."

Luc raised an eyebrow.

Albert cleared his throat, "By devil, I mean 'Yuber', and by metaphorically, I mean 'Get your coat'."

End flashback

"It still sounds like it was you who suggested Yuber."

"Well all you said then was that you wanted to put the world out if its misery, nothing about precision."

"This still leaves us with the carnage at the infirmary."

"I don't see how this affects either of us."

"That means that the injured will not be any healthier before the NPC's finish the unspecified damage to the stage."

"You mean?"

"You're playing Peter Pan."

Peter Pan

The curtains parted to reveal the brand new Budehuc castle theater, refurbished so that the unspecified damage from Hugo's true unspecified rune was completely gone. Now, the stage was decorated with three beds, while a large prop window stood to the right of the stage. Chris, Martha, and Rody lay peacefully, or very close to that stage, in the beds.

Suddenly, the window flew open and Albert flew in – only to fly back and crash into the wall as the cable supporting him reached its limit.

"Oh $$&!" He swore, pulling off the cables that held him suspended.

"……" "Tinkerbell" said, landing on the windowsill near him. Persmerga Crossed his arms and glowered within the soft glowing light the firefly rune was radiating around him, alighting the glitter spangles on his wings.

"Are….ummm, are you crying?" Chris asked haltingly. "Why?..."

"I just hit my head on the wall! What do you think?" Albert sobbed.

"Uh well, g-give you… a….k-k-k-k" She flushed horribly.

"Okay." Albert said, holding out his hand. "And I'm not really this dumb." He stated toward the audience.

Ceaser chuckled.

"Ummm….." Chris murmured.

"Well, hand it over, I don't have all day."

"……." Said Tinkerbell, boredly.

"Why that dirty rotten BASTARD!" Borus yelled, hackles raised.

"Ever wonder what a hackle is?" Queen asked Geddoe.

"No." He answered levelly, glaring down at his beer.

"Me either."

"Tinkerbell says you can't give me a kiss." Albert said matter-of-factly. "Too bad for you."

"….." Tinkerbell shrugged.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Borus screamed, trying to force his way to the stage, cussing and swearing the whole way.

"In fact, the walking testosterone tank seems to be grunting that too."

"I'm sure you find that intimidating as you have no male hormones to speak of."

Albert glared with all the dignity he could muster.

"Peter Pan, the eternally prepubescent." Caeser laughed.

"Oh look, Peter Pan. If I go with him, I can stay young forever." Martha said, sitting up.

Caeser was close to choking now. Borus had made it halfway to the stage before being dragged down by the weight of Zexan knights trying to stop him from interrupting the play any further.

"ZZzzzzZZZz." Added Rody.

"I've come to take you all to Neverland." Albert recited dutifully, "But before we go, you need to learn how to fly."

"Ahh, broomsticks, flying lessons – I WAS NOT SLEEPING! Huh? Rody said in quick succession as he jumped up from the bed, knocking his head in the process.

"All you need are happy thoughts – like rubbing your brother's face in the fact that he's useless, stupid and not nearly as good looking."

"I'm sooooo happy, I'm already soaring.." Rody stated fuzzily, staring up at the ceiling from where he had fallen on the floor.

"I think he's just concussed." Martha commented, looking down at Rod from her bed.

"Concussions are good for wind magic, yaaaaay! I'm even happier now."

'Happy….thoughts?" Chris stuttered, blushing slightly, again.

"That's what I said. They lift you into the air – I can't believe I'm saying this."

"Fine, just no one look at my panties while I'm up there." Martha warned.

Many in the front row looked distinctly pale and backed up a small bit, while others wished that Chris was wearing a skirt.

"But I'm not flying yet." Rody complained, sounding less happy.

"But you are pretty high." Martha countered, and he sounded comforted by that for some reason.

"Oh right, you need fairy dust, too." Albert cast a sidelong glance at Persmerga, who sighed silently and waved a black clad arm at the actors, sending sequins from his wings flying.

Chris began sneezing violently, "I think I'm allergic to fairies." She complained.

"Maybe you're just too heavy to fly." Albert smirked.

"WAS THAT A COMMENT ABOUT HER WEIGHT? DIIIIE!" Borus screamed, diving at the stage, only to be overpowered by the knights already holding onto his arms and legs and crashed his head into the edge of the stage.

"Owww… Oh hey, I'm flying…" he smiled, as the other Zexan knights lay in a heavy ironclad heap on the ground.

"There is innocence in concussions." Albert intoned wisely.

Caesar was laughing so hard he actually stopped breathing and collapsed onto the ground.

"Someone call the doctor!" Apple yelled. "No wait, don't…." she trailed off as the new "doctor" appeared beside her.

"Ahh, a near-fatal snarking," Yuber said, poking Caesar with a sword, "we need to perform a mercy killing before it's too late."

And while an argument ensued, the cast of Peter Pan wisely chose to sneak out of the theater, ending the play.


	27. King Midas

_Wee another chapter, I seem to be able to write more when I'm being whipped by classes. Oh, and I finally escaped the evil of education classes, instead I'm learning aviation mechanics (quite a switch, ain't it?)_

Tuta and Mio stood in front of a crowd that waited before the infirmary, facing them were Yuber and Albert.

"Look, as his next of kin, I think my brother would want to die."

"As me, I don't!" Caesar shouted.

"And --" Albert continued, ignoring his brother, "He's clearly a vegetable, his name is Caesar after all. He's named after a salad!"

"Are you sure you can be your brother's speaker when you have a clear hatred of him?" Tuta asked.

"What do you mean, he is my little brother. This is the best for m-him. Yuber has a great record of mercy killings."

"Well you did write a note in the suggestion box saying you hated him and wanted him to suffer and/or die."

"If all you have is my confession to go on, forget it. I'm simply not credible."

"I think he's got us there." Kidd reasoned.

As the conversation continued, the patients were slowly putting their plan in motion to escape the infirmary.

"Hey! They're putting their plan in motion, stop them!" Albert yelled and pointed towards Hugo, Thomas, Sasarai and Caesar as they quickly scaled out the first story window onto the grass outside as fast as their broken legs could carry them.

Incidentally, broken legs can't carry anyone very fast. So as the "Doctor" hurried after them like a doberman with a med degree, only without the medical degree, followed by the concerned relative, moving like a arrogant, self-absorbed, pretty boy in women's underwear, only without the... cough cough they called upon the only person capable of moving them out of the way fast enough to escape.

"VIKI!" Three of them cried in unison.

Sasarai was having second thoughts about including her in their escape plan.

"...!" Persmerga called, as he pounced from the roof, tackling Yuber and beginning an all out brawl.

Albert dashed ahead a few steps, failing to notice that the actual fighter character had been detained, and reached the injured patients just as Viki managed to gate them out of the frying pan and...

Into the frying pan. Hugo, Albert, Caesar, Thomas, and Sasarai looked up in unison to see the surprised and delighted faces of the cannibals who happened to own the giant cookpot they had landed in.

"Welcome back." The closest one grinned, poking Sasarai in the front of his uniform.

King Midus

The curtains rose over the stage on schedule, despite the noticeable lack of 5/108th of the castle populous. The battered Yuber and Persmerga sat in the front row, restrained in straight jackets that prevented everything but their combined vehement glaring at each other. Connie was set on fire attempting to pass between them and ran howling into the distance, incidentally passing Mamie and unlocking the hot dog recipe at the Budehuc castle restaurant. Surrounding them, were the Zexan knights, including the still concussed Borus. Rody had been released from the hospital, now that Tuta was back in control, although he had to wear down Estellla on her insistence that a mercy killing would improve his water magic.

On the whole, the residents of the castle were cautiously optimistic that this pay would be an improvement on the bloodletting of the previous plays, with Yuber out of commission and Albert missing and presumed whiny.

The stage showed an elaborate castle room with a window overlooking a rose garden, only made of cardboard and not elaborate, and the roses looked amazingly like the paper roses used in Beauty and the Beast.

Dupa strutted on stage, dancing in his steps. "I'm so rich it's me you hail, if I'm obnoxious kiss my tail." he sung to himself. As he walked, his massive tail slammed into the table, launching it into the audience, who ran out of the way -- except those few who were straight-jacketed and strapped to the seats.

Nonetheless, Dupa continued on to the window. "Oh how happy I am to be wealthy, but that stupid Apollo. He has all that gold in the sun and he rains it down on rich a poor alike, he should be more selective about who he gives his gold to."

"I heard that." Sarah commented, appearing onstage in a shower of light (BTW, this is not the impregnating kind of the other Greek legend...)

Gasp Dupa staggered back unrealistically, knocking his tail against the wooden chain and shattering it. "Apollo!" (He might have made a comment about Apollo changing genders except for his inability to tell Luce from Percival with his knowledge of human faces).

"That's right." Sarah stepped closer, "So, you like gold do you?" She chuckled sinisterly.

"Well, I would say I did, except you giggled like that and implied your answer is gonna be painful for me."

"No, no," Apollo protested, "I'm generous, so I will give you what you want, I will make everything you touch turn to gold!"

"Wow!" Dupa replied, "A generous god! I see no reason to doubt the sincerity of your offer!"

"Very well then, sucker." Sarah said, stepping towards the balcony and prepared to disappear, just as Dupa turned around to walk towards the door, striking her with his tail and launching her into the audience.

"Awww, how come _she_ can fly?" Rody moaned.

"I love my new powers!" Dupa exclaimed gleefully, touching first the door and then the flowers in the garden, which both promptly turned to gold. (Or, more accurately, were doused with yellow paint by hurried stage hands).

"Aww, you ruined the flowers!" Nash complained, walking onto the stage from the side.

"I made them better silly girl, see how they shine."

Nash's face faltered, and he drew a deep breath between his clenched teeth before delivering the next line. "But daddy, I liked them when they smelled nice."

"Aww, don't worry." Dupa patted him on the head, knocking him to the ground with the force of his huge arms. And before he could blink 57.8 times, the stagehands had covered Nash in golden paint.

"Oh, my daughter is gold... Hmm," Dupa thrashed his tail in concentration, shattering the walls for the set. "Murdering my daughter has given me an appetite, I better go eat."

Dupa returned to where the chair would have been, had it not been a pile of splinters, and reached for the imaginary cup, where the cup would have been had it not been thrown into Yuber's head. He pretended to drink, and then made a great show of gagging.

"Argh! my food has been turned to gold! How can this be?" He cried out, spinning around in agony, and possibly heavy metal poisoning, ripping the curtains from their hangers and smashing through the support beams to the stage. "Apollo, why have you tricked me?" Dupa yelled.

However, he was only slightly louder than the sudden cracking sound the stage was making. He looked up, and then lept to the side as the ceiling collapsed over the stage, sending even more splinters into the immobile portion of the audience.

The audience, decided that was the time to leave. However, given the amazing lack of killing embedded in the play, and much less snarking of lines, they all agreed that this play was a great success, and showered a point on the floor, designated as the honorary stage, with coins and massive underwear.

Yuber, Persmerga, and Sarah were carried bleeding into the infirmary as soon as the play had ended. Tuta looked down pityingly on Yuber's mangled body, and then up at Mio.

"So, mercy killing?" he suggested.

"Mercy killing." She nodded.

"Stupid poetic justice." Yuber growled.


	28. Little Mermaid

The cannibal settlement lay in earthquake ridden chaos, as the survivors scrambled from their ruined homes to devour the media personnel and celebrity spokespeople who had arrived to decry to destruction of the ancient, peace-loving, cannibal civilization, by five uncaring barbarians.

Meanwhile, the barbarians were riding away, full tilt, in a stolen wagon.

"So, why exactly didn't you do that the lest time you were there?" Hugo asked as Sasarai steered the wagon.

"I was out of spell slots, and I'll admit I was a bit slow on the uptake the first time Viki screwed up my landing place. The cannibals lit a bit of a fire under me this time."

Which was true, the five of them had rather discomforting burns on their posteriors from the frying pan they had initially found themselves in upon arriving. Thomas was in the back of the cart, trying to find a way to seat himself so that he sat on the legs, and not the burns, but not aggravating his broken legs. So were Albert and Ceaser, (Albert having cracked his legs tripping over his coat while fleeing) but to much less affect, as they were also trying to seat themselves in such a manner as to annoy the other as much as possible.

"Sasarai! He's touching me!" Albert wailed.

"He poked me!"

"Now he's making faces!"

"Will you two shut up?" Sasarai yelled over his shoulder.

"Do you actually need to hit every bump in the road?" Hugo asked irritably.

"I don't need a backwagon driver!"

"I was just saying that..." Hugo muttered.

"Do you want to drive this?"

"Yes!"

"Well, you can't!"

"He's poking me!" Ceaser called.

"I am going to turn this wagon right around-" Sasarai cut his words off short, glancing behind him. The cannibals grinned. And the wagon moved onward.

Back at the castle Budehuc, Persmerga and Sarah had been released from the hospital with a clean bill of physical health, mentally of course, well, Tuta couldn't deal with that. Yuber, however, had been prescribed a mercy killing and all was well...

Except that the earnest and kind doctor was having trouble finding a way to kill a demonic incarnation of chaos. He didn't eat, making it hard to poison his food, or starve him to death, and he had an awful tendency to teleport away whenever someone did enough physical damage to almost kill him. As the scripts for the next play were being delivered, he was no closer to the final rest he truly deserved

The Little Mermaid

The curtains to the theater opened to the deck of a ship, with a cutaway cabin to one side, to the other, blue ribbon was being drawn back and forth by the stagehands, obviously, this was meant to be water. Luc and Jaques sat on opposite sides of the bed in the cabin, while Sarah stood on the deck, overlooking the water. Percival stood nobly in the narrator's box.

"The tragic mermaid," he began in his knightly voice, causing three generic Zexan NPC women to swoon in their seats, "stood awaiting the dawn. Although she had given her life under the sea for the chance to win the prince's heart, he was now wed to another. Soon the witch's curse would be enacted and she would become sea foam."

"Wait, you're saying that Luc dumped me?" Sarah asked incredulously.

"but wait, in the waves, a familiar form emerges."

Borus emerged from the side of the stage to stand among the moving blue ribbons, just about the time the stagehands helpfully doused him with a bucket of water.

He glared for a moment, before shaking the water from his eyes and beginning his lines, "Sister!" he called, "I've come to help you!"

But his sister did not seem to be listening, she remained paralyzed on the deck, "He dumped me? For that... that... and after all I did for him." She had a expression on her face like the one a cow give to an oncoming train (Assuming of course, that there were trains, which there were not).

"I sold my hair to the sea-witch," Borus continued to recite his lines, despite her lack of compliance, or the very rapid rusting of his armor, because god knew what was in the water, "for this knife. Kill the prince and soak your feet in his blood and you will become a mermaid ag -- Isn't this a little deranged for a kids story?" he asked Nadir, who waited by the stage.

"Stay in character!" Nadir hissed back, ignoring the question.

"I may have slaughtered an entire village in a berserk rage, but, think of the children! I'm supposed to tell her to kill a guy for breaking up with her? Actually, he didn't even do that, they weren't going out..."

"Broke up, with me?" Sarah muttered, her eye twitching psychotically.

"I'm sure she can get counseling, well, as long as Yuber isn't running the clinic anymore..."

"Mercy killing, yesss." Sarah muttered, a maniacal glint forming in her eyes.

"You do realize this is just a play right?" Percival asked, looking oddly at both Borus and Sarah.

Luc slept peacefully in the next room (Stage set) oblivious to the play.

"Stay in character!" Nadir hissed at Percival.

"Stop ignoring me!" Borus yelled indignantly, stamping his foot on the stage. "I know you don't take me seriously, but this time I'm serious!"

"Death. No more being ignored." Sarah cackling gleefully, clutching her staff and turning towards the door.

"I'll join with Luce and work to make the plays safe for young viewers, and show worthwhile entertainment to anyone I don't burn alive! And.. I'll get out of this armor before the rusts seals me in it and they sell me to Final Fantasy 9... Dammittall! My kingdom for a can opener!"

Percival blinked, "Well, I can see my days of looking down on you have just come to a middle. Were you eating the mushrooms?"

"You must kill him, he must die." A voice began chanting from the rafters above the stage, now that Sarah, staff in hand, stood near the bed occupied by Luc -- Jaques had already left the play in silent disgust.

"Are you my conscience?" Sarash asked.

"Yes, yes I am." The voice answered convincingly.

Just about the time that Tuta and Mio barged cross the catwalk in the rafters, "It's the patient! Don't let him get away!"

"Darn." Yuber muttered, teleporting away, after cutting the catwalk strings, causing the platform to crash down onto the stage and gruesomely squish all below.

This, thankfully, ended the play, and the tirades of the "actors" within, and it was even as tragic as the story was supposed to be.

Elsewhere, the five barbarians, who had ruthlessly defended themselves by killing the cannibals merely trying to eat them, crouched in their overturned cart, the cannibals closing in.

"I hate to interject, but.." Ceaser began.

"Then don't." Albert responded.

"Don't we have Viki's mirror?"

"You mean the one that can teleport us back to the castle instantly?"

"Yeah."

"In my pocket," Thomas said.

"Well, I think that could save us." He explained patiently.

"Well _I_ think we're all going to die horribly!" Albert mocked, then his laughter trailed off, and he crossed his arms huffily. "Just use the damn mirror.


	29. Wizard of Oz

Tuta looked aghast, at what had been his clean infirmary. Actually this had happened before, many times, considering he had three infirmary beds in a castle at war, not to mention the plays that had occasionally left the entire castle in bed. Nonetheless, cramming Percival, Borus, Hugo, Sarah, Luc, Albert, Sasarai, Ceaser, and Thomas into the three beds, was quite a task.

Since Sarah was the only female, she was given a bed to herself. Which left Hugo, Borus, Percival, and Thomas in one bed, and Albert, Luc, Ceaser, and Sasarai in the other. The former was made even more crowded by the normal well wishers, the horde of random Zexan NPC women who were crowded around Percival, and the horde of yaoi fanfiction fans, watching Borus for the slightest hint of homoeroticism.

"Shut up!" Growled Borus, unable to get up to smite the curs.

"No one has said anything." Percival noted.

"Yeah," said Leo, from his vantage at the end of the bed, "We're merely giving each other significant glances and snickering incessantly."

"Leo," Chris recriminated, "your mouth is talking, you might want to look to that."

"Yes, ma'am." Leo said instantly.

"But, Borus," Percival said slyly, "You could deflate rumors by just saying who you like."

"Borus?" Chris asked in all innocence, "Why are you turning red?"

"This is terrible." Tuta frowned at the damage, from his office.

"To think a patient did this," Mio agreed.

"He belongs in a hospital, getting the treatment and mercy killing he deserves."

"Well, I suppose our new orderly can take care of things, once he gets used to the job." Mio said hopefully.

"…!" Argued Persmerga.

"Yes, Persmerga, the nurse outfit is necessary."

"…!"

"No, we don't have any male uniforms."

"…" Persmerga warned.

"You can't quit just because of a uniform you don't like. Besides, I really do think the pink suits you. The pantyhose wouldn't run if you were more careful anyway."

"…" Persmerga muttered darkly.

Meanwhile, in the theater…

**Wizard of Oz**

The curtains to the theater opened to a winding road, in fact, a road very similar to the road used in the highwayman, except painted yellow.

"Gee Toto, I don't think we're in Caleria anymore." Geddoe said sullenly.

"Grrrr." Gau said, even more sullenly.

"Once upon a time snicker, there was a young snicker girl," Duke began from the narrator box, grinning even more broadly when Geddoe glared at him. "Who was wisked away from her home and sent to another world with her pet dog, Toto." Snicker

Suddenly, the lights in the room dimmed, an ethereal glow sprung up from center stage, and the Seer Leknaat appeared.

"Fire bringer, I have dire news for you," she began in an echoing, mystical voice.

"No, no, you're ruining the play!" Moaned Nadir.

"You seem to have forgotten that you are in the middle of fighting a war. An evil force, known as "fanfiction" is manipulating your actions. You must…"

Even more suddenly than her arrival, a house fell from the ceiling and crushed her, leaving only her shoes visable. Above the stage, Yuber cackled madly.

"Finally," said Nadir, "random violence that fits the story!"

"The young snicker _girl _snicker," Duke continued, "was granted the witch's magical ruby slippers, snicker."

"Ruff ruff." Sighed Gau.

"That's right Toto, grave robbing is a victimless crime... Except those aren't ruby slippers."

"If you want costumes, why don't you wear a skirt? Dorthy?" Duke sneared, and laughed.

Geddoe rolled his eyes, "Is the play over yet?"

"Did someone mention a costume?" Lilly asked, poking her head out from behind the stage.

"You don't need a costume to play the wicked bitch Lilly," Reed sneared from the audience.

Lilly glared, "Edge, Sword." She ordered.

Reed suddenly found himself being dragged out of the theater by Edge, still holding the Star Dragon Sword in his other hand.

"You didn't think I'd find a new body guard? HUH?" Lilly shrieked after them.

"IIIII'LLLLBEEEEEEEBAAAAACK!" Reed shouted back, with altogether too many letters and not enough spaces, so that Emily had to go out and give him a fine for each infraction.

"Hey! Lilly complained, "Someone stole my role!"

"Ha! Now you know how it feels!" Reed shouted back through the doorway.

"Well, if you don't need me, I just won't help!" Lilly stuck her nose in the air and turned on her heel.

"That didn't even make sense." Muttered Geddoe.

"The play won't make sense until you get into character, girly." Duke gasped out, between fits of laughter.

"I'm pretty sure we've done the "Duke laughs at me over a costume", thing before too."

Duke collapsed on the floor, "I think pink would be your color!" Now he was laughing so hard that he had trouble breathing.

"Do you really want to see Geddoe's legs?" Nicolas asked from his table.

Duke immediately stopped laughing and shuddered.

"Worst play yet, we didn't even establish a plot."

In the Audience, Mio turned to Tuta, "It's a good thing someone stopped the snarking, he could have suffocated."

Tuta looked back at her thoughtfully, "Snarking at someone in drag can kill? I have an inkling..."

"You stole that line from me." Geddoe commented, from the stage.

"It's nothing cruel, is it?" Mio asked, worried by the look in his eye.

"Get me Arthur, I think I have a story for him." Tuta grinned, much more wickedly than usual.

In the infirmary, after a grizzly battle, the patients had finally managed to fight off the hordes of screaming yaoi angst fangirls from their room, and retired for a night of well-deserved rest and sniping each other.

Then, suddenly, the door banged open, and both Arthur and Kidd raced in, full of excitement.

"I heard from an unknown source that some enemies had put their differences aside and were now in bed together."

"I was told to investigate whether the rumors of two sets of brothers sleeping together was true."

Every occupant of the room looked on in horror.

"That does it!" Borus snarled, "I've had enough of the crappy sexual jokes in this episode! I said I was going to make the theater safe for the children." He ripped his sword from its sheathe, stabbing it in the direction of Arthur and Kidd, and then waving it in the air, as if that could somehow bring him close enough to hit them, without moving his poor crushed bones off the bed.

"So you're making the world safe for children?" Kidd asked?

"YES!"

"By threatening to kill us?"

Borus growled and then sheathed his sword.

"How about you? Do you have anything to say about the rumors?" Kidd asked Sasarai excitedly.

"This is it," Tuta whispered to Mio.

"Someone just kill me! Mercy killing!" Sasarai groaned.

"You called?" asked Yuber brightly.

"Now." Tuta grinned.

"!" Shouted Persmerga dramatically.

The room fell silent.

Except Yuber, who had fallen over laughing.

"You see," Tuta began explaining to Mio, in the typical, sit outside the fight commenting on the fighting style instead of helping cliche style typical in anime, "laughing at a rival who was only implied to be in drag almost caused Duke to suffocate to death. By extrapolation, it can be concluded that seeing a rival who actually is in drag is that much more powerful!"

"..." Persmerga said accusingly.

And Yuber kept laughing.


	30. Rumplestilskin

Rumplestilskin

"You really want to be in a play?" Nadir asked happily, but warily.

"Of course." Ceaser, Sarah, Albert, Percival, Thomas, Hugo, and Borus all answered almost simultaneously.

"But don't you belong in the hospital? I thought most of you had broken legs?"

"But we just want to be in the play!" Ceaser answered, smiling falsely.

"Doesn't it hurt to walk like that?"

"Excruciating." He kept smiling.

"But, the show must go on, right?" Hugo chimed in.

"Of course." Nadir answered, delighted, "but the hospital... Maybe the play should wait."

"We don't want to go back!" Thomas said, a little too hastily.

"He means," Albert recovered for him, "that we would rather just start the play right away, while we have the..." He searched for an appropriate word.

"Muse." Sarah answered.

"Well, I'll get the scripts then. I like your enthusiasm. And you two," he turned to Borus and Percival, "You haven't said anything at all, I like that." He wandered off humming happily to himself.

"You almost ruined it, moron." Albert said snidely to his brother.

"He bought it, didn't he?"

"Yours was the only comment that was described as falsely by the author."

"Well if you don't want to be in a play with me, I'll understand if you want to go back and rest your legs in the infirmary."

"Maybe someone ought to go back and help..." Thomas began.

"You?" Albert suggested, before he finished.

Thomas fidgeted, but didn't comment any further.

Meanwhile, in the infirmary...

"Having a demon who doesn't need to breathe anyway laugh himself to death, great plan." Luc muttered to Tuta, who occupied the hospital bed across from him.

"Shhh," Mio pleaded from the hospital bed further on, "He'll wake up."

"And all this is your fault in the first place, because you hired him." Sasarai glared at Luc.

"Your life is a lie." Luc shot back.

"No it... Well, yes, but my point remains valid."

The four hospital patients went quiet as Yuber twitched in the chair he was sleeping in.

"Yes... Kill all life... Destroy... Kill... Kill...Kiiiiillllll... What?" Yuber opened his mismatched eyes with a start. "Oh, I was having this wonderful dream, I think you were in it. Which reminds me," he looked over at the patients, "I think someone needs surgery..." He materialized a sword.

"My brother looks really sick," Luc suggested.

"I'm not sick, I'm tied to the bedpost!" Tuta exclaimed.

"Hey, enough about that, pervert." Yuber growled, "Anyway, there's some very sick patients at large who need mercy killings. Their lives have lost all meaning to me."

"Isn't the patient the one who..." Mio began.

"No, only me, and perhaps relatives who stand to inherit money, and, anyone who will choose death, essentially."

The play began in Budehuc theater. When the curtains rose, the stage was set with a castle tower, in front of a quaint peasant landscape, with a winding road running through golden fields full of plague rats.

"There once was a peaceful kingdom, somewhere far away," Hugo began from the narrator's box. Living in this kingdom was a poor farmer and his young daughter, May. He was a devoted father, and hoped to find a way to make his daughter's life better, so one day, when he saw the king's messenger..."

Sarah and Percival walked onto the stage from the left, while Thomas entered from the right on crutches.

"Greetings messenger," Percival said with flair, "Did you know my daughter can spin gold out of straw?"

"Wow, it's a wonder you're still poor." Thomas said in awe.

"Yes, curse these high straw prices." Percival agreed.

"Well, I oughta tell the king that." Thomas said, and limped painfully from the stage.

"Why exactly did you tell him that?" Sarah asked, raising an eyebrow.

"So he'll marry you, because Kings really need more gold."

"One small problem, you might have forgot - I can't spin straw into gold!"

"Well I know that, and you know that, but the king doesn't know that," he chuckled, "and we sure won't tell him!"

"You're an idiot." Sarah rolled her eyes, as they both left the stage.

"The next day, the king called for the May to be brought to his castle."

Albert and Sarah entered from opposite sides of the stage.

"Hello, I have this room full of straw, turn it into gold and I'll marry you, otherwise, I'll have you executed." Albert managed, leaning heavily on his crutches.

Sarah fixed Albert with a baleful glare, "Oh, you sweet talker you."

"Are you saying you don't want to do it?"

"I _can't_ do it."

"Sure, give me three good reasons why!" Albert demanded.

"Hmmm, sanity, reality, the laws of matter?" Sarah replied sarcastically.

Albert glared, "Don't tell me what you can't do just because it's physically impossible!" With that he turned on his heel and left the stage.

"Oh, woe is me." Droned Sarah without emotion.

"Trouble?" Caeser asked, popping up from behind a bundle of hay.

"I must turn this straw into gold, or I'll be killed."

"Umm, what do you get if you do manage?"

"I marry king Albert."

"I think you're better off with death, actually."

"Just do your lines smartass," Sarah warned.

"Fine," Ceaser rolled his eyes, "I'll turn the straw to gold for your first born child."

"Agreed."

"Or you could take my family's first born, that would be great too."

"Just get to work."

The curtains closed over the stage, and opened again a few minutes later.

"The king was amazed by the transmutation, and he and May were married. Soon they had a young son. Then one day... Hugo read off the card, sitting down hurriedly.

"Wahh waah... Sigh" Borus said, sitting irritable beside Sarah and Albert.

"I have returned for your child!" Ceaser said, wandering in in a wheelchair.

"Oh no, we must change the deal, now that we've got what we wanted out of you."

"Sounds just like you."

"Yes, I do have a regal personality that this play presents."

Ceaser rolled his eyes again, almost fatally snarking himself in the process, "Whatever. Fine, I'll let you keep the kid if you can guess my name in three days."

"The king and queen tried for two days to guess every name they could think of, in the land and from stories," Hugo narrated, "but none were the little man's name."

"Don't mock my height!" Ceaser screamed from offstage.

"Stay in character!" Nadir moaned.

"So," Hugo continued, "The king came up a plan on the second night."

"Espionage has never failed me before!" Albert grinned, "We'll just send someone to follow the little man.."

"HEY!"

"And see what his name is!"

Albert and Sarah left the stage painfully.

"So the king sent his servant to watch the little man at his home in the forest."

Ceaser rolled onstage, humming to himself happily. "They'll never know, they'll never guess!"

Thomas snuck, as much as was possible on crutches, one the stage, hiding behind a unidentifiable piece of scenery.

"They've guessed all those names, but they don't know that I am..."

Thomas mock gasped in anticipation.

"An agent of child protective services. And I will soon have them on charges of human trafficking and child abuse!"

"And uh..." Hugo stuttered as the curtains closed, trying to ad-lib that turn of events, "The king and queen were arrested, Borus was placed in a foster home and quickly adopted, and everyone but the king and queen lived happily ever after."

"Now that's a timely and socially challenging play," Luce smiled, hugging her foster children.

"Not my play," Nadir grumbled.

"Why was that called Rumplestilskin?" Sanae asked.

"Maybe it's a word from another language?" Peggy suggested.

"I think there was a character called Rumplestilskin..." Mused Hotez.

"..." Ayame added.

"Who are those people?" Yuber asked no one in particular.

"Oh, just characters I never bothered to include before," Psycofoxx said sheepishly.

"Oh, well, tell them that I hate them." Yuber replied, before sheathing his swords and stalking off back to the infirmary.

Later that day, in the infirmary, Yuber returned to find that Tuta and Mio had escaped their beds and fled, leaving only Sasarai and Luc.

"No! My patients have left!" Yuber sobbed, "Why, oh why, didn't I break their legs!"


	31. Three Muskateers

Mark Twain once said, "Everyone talk about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it." So, this chapter will not mention what kind of day or night in Budehuc this is. If you feel the need for weather, see previous chapters for excess description and use some of that.

The actors waited in the theater, anticipating and dreading the next play, but each fearing to be cut and sent back to the infirmary. Tuta and Mio had joined the others, both hoping from a role away from the "doctor". Albert sat in the corner, painstakingly filling out evil lackey and tactician applications and scouring the paper for help-wanted ads. The others fretted, especially Sarah, wanting in her heart to back for Luc.

Nadir entered finally, clutching what looked like four scripts. The air was tense as all present hoped for the coveted ticket away from the infirmary.

"Albert," Nadir began.

"In your face brother." Albert taunted, taking his script.

"Caesar."

Albert grumbled.

"Sarah, and Tuta. I gave Geddoe his already…"

Albert sighed deeply, "At least I know I'm safe."

"And does anyone know where Yuber is? I need to give him his." Receiving no response from the petrified cast members, Nadir turned and left, looking for Yuber on his own.

"We need to run…" Albert muttered.

"You're the one who summoned him."

Albert glared at his brother, "Just because I deserved this, doesn't mean I'm not pissed off about it."

"At least Luc will be safe…" Sarah murmured.

"He's still stuck with Yuber until the play begins two weeks from now," Nash pointed out, leaning into the room. "So, I think your definition of safe must be one separate from the one in the dictionary."

"I need a miracle to save him now."

"You mean praying? He's the bishop, and let's not forget the kid of god that would want to protect Luc." Nash snarked, making extra sure to keep breathing.

Sarah looked down her nose at him, "Evil miracles are still miracles."

"But you're an atheist."

"All I need to do is make my own miracles, such as presenting the hospital with a multitude of other patients who need mercy killings."

"…Oh."

Sarah grinned and raised her wand.

The night of the play, and the theater was crowded as usual, though it seemed that most of the patrons were chained to their seats. Lilly cursed loudly into her drink, flanked by Edge and the Star-Dragon Sword, who was bound and determined to get Anne to feed him some whiskey.

The Three Musketeers:

The curtains opened upon a scene of splendor, or, more accurately, a roughly painted wooden balcony that was designed to look splendid, over looking plywood steps. Albert and Sarah stood tied behind a maliciously grinning Caeser, who had a gun leveled at their heads. Yuber, Geddoe, and Tuta stood before them. The narrator, Duke, would have spoken at this point, except that he had been stabbed for suggesting that Geddoe needed mouse ears for the role.

"The way I see this, it's simple." Ceaser began in an evil voice.

"That's about the only way you would understand it, isn't it?" Albert cut in.

"You throw down your swords, and I'll kill King Louie and his queen!"

"And" You'll kill them?" Tuta queried, "but I thought we were rescuing them…"

"We are." Geddoe replied, "You see Cardinal, threatening to kill them is not quite the motivation you might be looking for, when discussing things with their bodyguards."

"I like killing." Yuber added hopefully.

"Ummm, but it's just a play right?" Tuta whimpered.

"Did you miss the previous plays by any chance?" Sarah asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Well yes, because my number of patients always seems to inexplicable rise after every play."

"Can we just get on with it?" Geddoe asked.

"If it involves a quicker route to stabbings, then yes." Yuber replied.

"Ahem, release the king who is rightful ruler though accident of birth!" Geddoe cried, raising his sword.

'You're _all_ using real swords?" Caesar asked, trying desperately to remember his fighting tactic of running away really fast. "Isn't that against the rules?"

"Nadir said we it was in the rules," Yuber whined.

"He just made those rules up!"

"Me making up rules, including rules that contradict other rules is allowed by the rules." Nadir answered himself from the side of the stage.

"You're doomed," Albert whispered to Caesar helpfully.

Caesar sighed, "Just once, I'd like to go through a play without being doomed."

Unfortunately, he had just been stabbed, making that hope a brief and futile one.

"Tuta?" Caesar asked, shocked.

Tuta shrugged, holding the sword awkwardly, "Well, when in Rome."

"Yay, we're saved…" Sarah muttered, preparing to teleport from the stage.

"I haven't killed anyone yet!" Yuber exclaimed, turning to eye the king.

"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

"Don't ruin the play!" Nadir shouted, jumping onto the stage just as Yuber pulled his arm back to strike.

The audience gasped as the mask Nadir was wearing shattered under the impact of Yuber's arm, and fell away from his face.

Nadir stumbled back, holding his hands over his face, "Damn you!" he sang out theatrically, "Is this what you wanted to see? Damn you, Curse you!!" At which point his stumbling led him to the edge of the stage.

"Did Nadir just die?" Caesar asked from a pool of blood.

"I'm not even going to dignify that obvious remark with a backstab." Yuber muttered, sticking his sword into Caesar's prone form. "Before anyone asks," Yuber added, "That was a frontal stab wound."

"So, is the play over?" Tuta asked, looking out over the nervous audience.

"Sure, why not?" Sarah said, shrugging, "Let's go, I think we have a war to fight anyway, come on Yuber."

"Just let me kill a few more people."

"No, kill them when we get to battle. Let's get Luc and go."

"You can't kill Luc."

"Well, it sure seems that way anyway. Do you know how hard I've been trying?"

Much later; the people of Budehuc arranged themselves solemnly for the funeral of Nadir. It was a quiet ceremony, with a minimum of snarking and of people stabbing the corpse to make sure he was dead.

The flame champion read a eulogy that brought the entire castle to tears; it was so sad that the people near Yuber committed suicide by stabbing themselves in the back multiple times. So sad, that it cannot be recreated here.

"Somehow, I can't believe that Nadir was the only thing stopping this alliance from degenerating into a pack of random killers." Queen mused.

"Boggles the mind, doesn't it?" Joker added.

Albert spoke last, tears misting his eyes. "Nadir, I barely knew you, but I do know one thing: you hated Caesar, and" he began to choke up, "and that's all that really matters."

That night, Nash stood alone in the crypts beneath the castle.

"This game over yet? I don't see the point of a Suikoden in which I don't make an apareance." A female voice asked, neglecting the narrative that stated that Nash was _alone_ in the graveyard.

"Not quite yet, darling. And dear? If you want this war to be over soon, I think it would be best if Nadir didn't return as a powerful undead."

The end?

_Okay, I think you may have noticed that I've had trouble updating for awhile, and that the quality seems to have gone down in any event. This is mostly because I'm completely out of ideas. I know I said I would finish the suggestions, but at this point, I don't think I can before this fiction peters out into oblivion. So, I thought I'd end it here for now, which is too bad, because I was just short of 200 reviews TT. Anyways, anyone still reading at this point is likely one of the people who has been reading the fic for awhile, and I want to thank everyone for making this my most successful fanfiction series._


	32. The Return

The graveyard lay quiet, wreathed in mist that seeped in off the lake. Dew settled heavily about the tombstone, carved with only the single word: Nadir. And a figure approached, walking purposefully to the solemn memorial…

"About time we got this war started." Luc muttered, surveying the assembled forces from across the plain. Soon, I will be able to free the world from the grim future of the runes."

Sarah favored him with a ghost of a smile, "I shall be by your side Luc, that is all I've ever needed."

"I care not for the world, but there is a name to be made here." Albert added.

Each waited in silence for a moment, then turned expectantly to their last companion, who had failed to voice his own reasons.

Yuber glanced at each in turn, then rolled his mismatched eyes, "I. Like. To. Kill Things." He waved his arms exasperatedly, turning from them, "How is that not obvious by now?"

The figure marched closer, than waved calloused hands. The ground shook and parted, tearing away from the coffin beneath.

"It's awe inspiring, isn't it?" Aila asked, turning to look at her young chief. "Tragic and humbling at the same time."

"This land was destroyed by the runes before." Hugo replied, looking at the ruins, at the army filling it. "We can't let it happen again."

"I know." She touched the ground, sliding her eyes shut as the land answered. "I can feel the spirits speaking here, like in the wood about Alma Kinan, only in pain and sorrow."

"This is the beginning and the end of history." Apple added solemnly, coming beside them.

"Could you excuse me for a minute?" Joker asked, brushing beside them, "I have to go pee in some of that."

Arcane runes shifted about in the air, glowing brighter and more ominously.

Chris waited on horseback, the tension building before the charge. She clutched the familiar grip of her sword, the reliable tool of battle that she would always have. Even so, she felt naked without the arcane power of the true rune she had come to rely on.

"Soon now." Borus said, more to himself than the assembled knights about him.

"The tension is burning a hole in all of us." Salome assured him.

"Wow, it really does burn, doesn't it?" Borus returned.

"Umm no, that would be the burning catapults, let's go."

"Right."

And then it was done. The masked man rose from tomb, eyes glowing from behind the slits in white porcelain.

"Excuse me?"

"What is it? I'm writing." Psycofoxx growled at the reviewer.

"Didn't Nadir's mask break in the last play? How was he buried with it?"

"Humph, I'm not going to explain that plot-hole at all, I'm not even going to dignify it with a punchline."

"U SUK!"

Sarah lifted her head staring at nothing in terror.

"What is it Sarah?" Luc asked.

"I feel a disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices cried out "oh shit" in unison…"

"But what could it be?"

And suddenly they knew, they all knew, friend and foe, because the horror was manifest.

They were in the Budehuc playhouse.

"And now, Stars of Destiny, you belong to me!" Nadir's voice roared about them like the echo of a tomb.

Nash's eyes widened. The n he kicked the ground and mumbled, "Curse the censors for not allowing to express myself now."


	33. Jack and the Beanstalk

The legions of soldiers waited quietly, now that the plot resolution had been stolen from them, perhaps forever.

"The play will begin in two hours time," Nadir informed those unfortunates with scripts. "Be sure that you're ready by then." Then he vanished into a cloud of bats, who bumped aimlessly into things as they fluttered away in the bright sunlight. (Yes, I do know they navigate by hearing.)

"As he said," Albert repeated, "We have two hours… How far can we run in that time?"

"At least to Iskay I think…"

"Well, we could ask Viki to teleport us somewhere." Caesar proposed. Then immediately thought better of it, trailing off and shuffling his feet as the others stared at him.

"That would be worse than the play." Sarah stated blandly.

"But…." Caesar responded in horror, Nadir has costumes.

"Well, I'm not certainly not going to wear one, no matter what Nadir says." Albert humphed, crossing his arms.

"Won't you?" Nadir asked, appearing from the mist about their feet, his glowing eyes, he waved his hands…

Jack and the Beanstalk

The play began, as each of the closure-deprived warriors was taken to their seats. Many still injured from the battle they had been so rudely removed from. The curtains rose, revealing a little house that looked like it had been liberated from the "Three Little Pigs".

"Hey, wasn't that house blown up in the "Three Little Pigs"? Luce asked.

"Yes, but don't mention the plot-holes, Nadir will know…"

"Who said that?" Luce asked fretfully, glancing around.

The rest of the audience shrugged, looking about themselves, but cold find no satisfactory answer.

"Once upon a time," Nash began from the narrator's booth, "There was a little boy and his mother. They were very poor, so one day the mother decided to sell their only source of income."

"Moo." Albert stated grumpily, appearing from around the house wearing a cowbell and a false tail.

Luc emerged from the house, looking rather startled to find himself in costume.

"Is that a dress?" Queen aksed with a raised eyebrow.

Geddoe sighed, covered his good eye, "If I don't look, it can't kill my brain."

"Um…" Luc began. "Jack, since you've failed miserably at everything, I am entrusting you to do the one thing that may doom us if you get it wrong. Go sell our cow."

"Moo." Albert stated again, sounding increasingly petulant.

Luc on the other hand, looked as though he wanted to hide behind the door again, but it would seem fate got in the way, or more precisely, Yuber, who was emerging wearing green.

"Sell the cow." He growled, "And why are we doing this again?"

"Because we can't afford to eat." Luc responded, edging toward the concealing shadows of the door.

"We've got steak right here." Yuber grinned. "I always wanted to be a butcher."

"I thought that's what you were?" Luc asked.

"No, I usually don't eat them."

"…. Oh. Well, yeah, just go sell her and bring the money right back." And with that, he slid back into the house and shut the door.

"I say, that's a sorry looking cow." Caesar stated, walking in from the left, grinning maliciously at his brother.

"Why don't you just buy it?" Yuber asked sweetly, drawing his sword.

"Ah, well, yeah, well, I can't argue with that argument, at least not while you have that psychotic gleam in your eyes. I guess its worth a few magic beans -- they are magic you know, not just moldy. If you plant them in the light of the full moon, do you know what will happen?"

"I get more beans?" Yuber asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Better than what you have now." Caesar answered. "And, I think they bleed, or something…" he added, looking at Yuber's expression.

"Luckily for him, Jack was a dimwit and accepted the deal." Nash narrated, as Caeser and Albert beat a hasty retreat off the stage.

"But, Jack's mother was angry."

"Stupid boy!" Luc's voice came faintly from inside the house, "Now we're ruined! You'll have to sleep outside with your stupid beans!"

"What th- CHILD ABUSE! CHILD ABUSE!" Yuber cried, stabbing the door.

"PARENT ABUSE! PARENT ABUSE!!" Luc coughed back, indicating, by the apparent pain in his voice, that it was not ketchup leaking through the door.

"Well screw you, I have bleeding beans to eat." Yuber huffed, turning his back to the door. "Unless that salesman was lying to me."

"Just then," Nash continued, "The moonlight struck the beans planted in the ground…"

"Did he ever plant the beans?" Kidd whispered to one side.

"Shut up!" A voice whispered back.

"And they grew into a giant beanstalk reaching through the clouds."

"The beans grew beans???" Yuber gasped, as several bean plants donated by Bart and hastily duct-taped together, were raised from the floor. "Curse you reality! CUUUURRSSSEEE YOOOOOUUUU!" And with that he drew his sword and slashed vindictively at the vines.

"ARGH!" Sasarai yelped, landing with a thump in a tangle of bean pants and broken stilts.

"Hey, it's raining men… or something…" Yuber exclaimed. "Now where did I put the spikes?"

"Ow.. ouch.. ugh.." Sasarai moaned, limping to his feet, "I smell the blood of an English bug."

"Bug?" Yuber asked, raising an eyebrow. "And what's this England you speak of? I've never heard of it."

"And yet, you have no problem conjugating it." Nash remarked.

"I will eat your for breakfast puny man!" Sasarai snarled.

There was a long moment of silence as Yuber took in the full size of the "giant" before him, "I'm not even going to dignify that with a punchline."

Sasarai glared, drawing himself up to his full height. "Well, perhaps to punish you I should kill your mother first!" And with a wave of his hand the prop house was lifted away by ropes and pulleys, revealing the exceedingly embarrassed Luc holding a punctured bottle of ketchup.

Yuber snorted, "Go ahead, she means nothing to me!"

The giant drew in a breath to retort when he stopped abruptly, looking quizzical, "Wait, Is that a bluff or not?"

The mother shrugged.

Someone in the audience coughed.

At a total loss, the stage crew opted to close the curtains.


End file.
